


Auf dem Lande

by Nara_ism



Series: Mermaid AU [2]
Category: Rammstein
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mermaids, Fluff, M/M, Non-Human Genitalia, Smut, Weird Biology, mermaid!Richard, mermaid!Schneider
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:00:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 46,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25894813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nara_ism/pseuds/Nara_ism
Summary: The life at the fishery have finally somehow settled down. The men are enjoying their last days of summer when a radio announcement catches their attention - why would the mermen be so interested in the local annual festival? And why does Richard have to be so stubborn?
Relationships: Richard Kruspe/Paul Landers
Series: Mermaid AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1879072
Comments: 84
Kudos: 150





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> *Crawls out of a trashcan* Eyoo, I’m back!!  
> I’m sorry it took me so long to post this, I already had a couple of chapters written for some time yet unfortunately, writer’s block can be quite the bitch. And my uni work did not help either lol.  
> I’d also like to thank the wonderful [Horrormouse](https://instagram.com/h0rr0rmouse?igshid=1paao91jdm1h1) for the most beautiful fanart I’ve ever seen ♡(seriously, there’s not a day when I’m not staring at it, completely in love hsajkdah)
> 
> Anyways, I hope you guys will enjoy this sequel~♡  
> (again, no proper beta and English is not my first language, so pls excuse any mistakes)

The afternoon sun was shining, warming up every single piece of land it had touched. The peaceful serenity of moving waves and chirping birds was repeatedly interrupted by clangs of metal meeting metal, excited chit chat and muffled music. The shore near the cottage was alive with movement as four men tried to anchor down a platform, which was leading straight out of the sea into a makeshift gazebo. Two of the men were surrounding the edges with stones, while the other two were hoisting it up from the water, their powerful tails easily helping them out.

“Just a bit to the right and it’ll be perfect!” shouted Till as he watched the mermen move. With a few strokes of their tails the platform had moved, automatically fitting in the prepared hole.

“There, perfect!” Paul smiled in triumph as he slowly moved onto the platform. “Now you’ll be able to easily move all the way to the gazebo.” He moved down and jumped into the waist-high water, checking for any bumps.

“You really didn’t have to do this, we already have the pier.” Richard smiled as he tested the newly made space for them. He hoisted himself up and turned to Paul.

“How many times did we have to pick splinters out of you already? I think this is gonna be better. Especially once it’s properly covered in stones and smoothed out,” Till returned, holding two beers in each hand. He handed two to Paul and then sat next to Doom and opened one for him.

“Well, thank you. I’m sure we’ll find a way to repay you somehow.” Doom raised his beer and clinked it with Till’s, immediately downing half of the bottle.

“You guys help us enough already.”

“Yeah. And I’m pretty sure Richard will properly thank Paul sometime later in the night.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Till.” Paul facepalmed, not being able to witness Till’s wiggling eyebrows. He could still hear the other men’s laughs and only took his hand away when he felt a light peck on his cheek. He looked to the side, eyes meeting witch Richard’s, who was laying on his belly, smiling back at him.

“Well, y’know, he’s not wrong.”

“Please stop encouraging him, Reesh. You have no idea what I have to listen to when we’re alone.”

“I’d like to be spared the details just as well,” Doom chimed in, turning his head away from the lovebirds.

They all laughed, enjoying the quiet which had settled above the fishery and listened to the birds and the radio. It has been some time since they got all together like this. There have always been some work to do, something to repair or to build, not giving the men the free time they craved. Once Paul had some time, his kids came to visit him and he had to spent all of his time with them. He still was afraid of showing them the merman, so even with protests coming from Richard, he did not tell them about him. Oliver and Flake were swarmed with tourists and had no time at all. The coming autumn promised them more free time and the men could not wait to have a holiday of their own.

After some time the music was interrupted by the moderator’s voice, announcing the local news. As they lived in the middle of nowhere, nothing really surprised them; the news weren’t really ground-breaking. A small fire there, a new shop opening over there and so on. What caught their attentions though, was the change in the moderator’s tone - he suddenly started talking with more enthusiasm, describing the oncoming celebrations.

_“As you all might know, the night of the Harvest Moon is coming up, which means a whole month of celebrations across the country! Do not miss the chance to celebrate with us! Don’t forget the fun starts when the moon rises on the 1 st of October!”_

Paul straightened a bit, looking back at Till with a raised eyebrow, “the Harvest Moon? What’s that?”

“You’ve never heard of it?” Till sipped his beer. “In the past farmers could work long into the night as the moon rose right behind the last sunrays, meaning they gathered all the stuff they grew during the summer. This all climaxed with the Hunter’s moon but right now it’s more or less just an excuse to drink and party excessively - straight for a month. It’s quite fun.”

“Huh, never heard of it.” Paul furrowed his brow as he looked at Richard. The merman himself had turned around, an expression of worry written all over his face as he silently looked at Doom.

“Is something wrong?” Paul asked.

“Well, that depends,” Doom spoke, slowly sliding his sight from Richard to Paul, “how far away is this 1st of October?”

“Not far, it’s in ten days.”

“Well, every year during this time the elders get a bit twitchy. They get all strict and forbid us from going to certain places. Do you think it has something in common with your celebrations?” the merman combed his curls back and looked at Till.

“I don’t think so. The people aren’t doing anything weird, they’re just hanging up fancy lanterns, shoot some fireworks and then they drink a lot. Why would your people be afraid of that? And where exactly can’t you go? And why?”

“I- well, honestly I don’t know.”

“I think it has to do something with the moon.” Richard sat up, playing with the throat of the bottle. “I mean, we always become bit restless when the moon is full, so maybe there are places that could get us hurt in our restlessness? Or maybe it’s the weather. The storms are more frequent and the sea gets dangerous, with the currents changing a lot and stuff, y'know.”

Paul turned around while Richard was talking and idly started to stroke the merman’s tail; his fingers ran over the faint, almost invisible scar after the stab wound, the only evidence of the fight were the few missing scales. He squeezed the tail and looked in thought back at his partner, a small smirk tugging at is lips.

“What do you mean by being restless when the moon is full, huh? That you guys are actually werewolves in disguise?” He laughed and leaned against Richard’s tail.

“Werewolves? What’s that?”

“People turning into monster dogs when the moon is full.”

“Dogs?”

“The four-legged animals that run around, people have them as their pets.”

“I know what dogs are, I’m just fucking with you.” Richard laughed, squeezing Paul’s side. “The elders always herd us more during these times, is all. But since they don’t give a fuck about me anymore, I can go wherever I want.”

“Huh.” Till finished his bottle. “There still might be something more to it. We can certainly look into it.”

“Tell us if you do, they never share with us anything and it can get pretty irritating at times.” Doom gave his empty bottle back to Till and laid into the water letting the current sway him.

Richard waited for a while and when he saw that the other merman wasn’t paying any attention, he slowly and quietly slid back into the water, ready to sneak up on him. Paul and Till watched him; Richard stuck to the ground underwater, which wasn’t really difficult as the water was quite shallow, and crawled right under the merman. There was a pause before he sprung up and with one swift movement grabbed Doom and jumped with him into the air, laughing at his yelp of surprise. They both twisted in the air and fell back into the water, wrestling each other and twisting, trying to gain the upper hand. Paul laughed at the interaction, the mermen kept repeatedly breaching the water and then dove down, their horseplay causing ruckus and making the two other men wet just as well.

Richard’s laughter was mixed up with splashes of water, the radio’s music and whoops of Till and Paul. They kept playing with each other for a few minutes, tails tangled and their hands trying to grip the other man – Doom finally caught Richard from behind, locking his arms around him and successfully immobilising him.

“You still have a lot to learn.” Doom laughed into his ear and slowly loosened his tail, freeing the other merman. Once he was free, he grabbed Richard’s shoulders for the last time and shoved him underwater, laughing at Richard’s muffled protests.

After some time the men began to work again, laying down some of the stones to complete the newly made terrace for the mermen. Moving giant sandstones and setting them into position took them the better part of the afternoon and before they could realize it, the sun started to slowly set, telling them it was about the time to stop.

Till made his way to the cottage, calling dibs on the shower. He waved his goodbye and soon disappeared inside. Paul still kept cleaning around the place, setting tools back into their boxes and collecting any kind of stuff that needed to be taken back to cottage, be it empty bottles or discarded clothing. From time to time he looked at the sea and watched the mermen, swimming laps around and chasing each other. After putting all of the things into a basket, Paul made his way onto the pier and waited for the mermen. They eventually made their way to him, Richard automatically hoisting himself up while Doom stayed under them.

“It’s time I head back too, we’re gonna see each other soon enough.” Doom looked up and smiled at the men.

“Oh, we will. We can’t finish that thing without you.” Paul nodded his head towards the platform. “Good night.”

“I know.” The merman smirked, meeting eyes with Richard and nodding, quickly disappearing into the water.

“So, now that we are alone…”

“Oh god Richard, you really can’t wait, not even a second, huh?”

Paul’s groans were drowned in Richard’s laugh as he tugged the other man down to sit next to him. The smaller man sat down and leaned back onto his elbows; he had to smile at the merman’s immediate need to be close to him and so he let him to partially crawl onto his stomach. Richard nuzzled his belly and left a few pecks there before looking up and returning the smile. Paul also felt how Richard sneaked his arms around him and was now stroking his lower back in small, repeated circles that sent pleasant shivers through his whole body. He felt him deeply inhale before the merman pushed himself up onto his arms which were anchored by Paul’s sides.

“Well? Are we going somewhere, or do you want to stay here?”

“We’ve done a lot of work today, Richard. I don’t think I have enough energy for anything.” Paul could see the disappointment behind the merman’s eyes; he knew that in comparison Richard barely felt any tiredness at all. “I can stay here with you for a while, but don’t expect me to be active.”

The merman sighed and then looked up, a small smile tugging at his lips. “I understand, if you want to go, go.”

“Oh no, no, no.” Paul took Richard’s face into his hands and brought him closer. “I’m not going anywhere yet.” He kissed him slowly, savouring his lover’s lips with each connection of their mouths. Paul had to chuckle at Richard’s eagerness to return the kisses, soon his tongue was attacking Paul’s mouth with confident licks across his lips.

“This is also a nice way to spend the evening,” Richard mumbled into his lips before he moved under Paul’s jaw and started to nibble at the sensitive skin there. Paul put one of his hands into Richard’s hair and swept it back, tangling his fingers into it and scratching the back of the merman’s head. Richard kept kissing him for a few moments and then moved away, slowly settling down onto the wooden planks and tugged Paul down, letting him let his head rest on his outstretched arm.

“Do you want me to look into the whole moon thing?” Paul whispered after few minutes.

“I don’t know. I’d be lying if I said I’m not curious but I doubt you’ll find anything.”

“Well, it’s worth a shot. I know Till had some weird books and we can always try to search for more in the shop where he found them. And then there’s of course the internet, there has to be something.”

“Well, it’s all in your hands. Do whatever you want, baby.” Richard leaned over and kissed the other man, once more initiating a row kisses, filling each purse of his lips with love and tenderness.

They stayed there embraced till the sun got low and the last rays finally left the skies. Paul let the merman slip into the water and with a final kiss he left for the cottage, eager to get to the shower just as well. He was pleasantly surprised with the smell of dinner when he came inside and grinned at cooking Till. After a quick warm shower he settled together with the bigger man at the table, happily wolfing down his share of the food.

“Till, do you still have some of the books?” He asked as he swallowed his last bite.

“About the mermaids? Yeah. You want to look into it?”

“I’d like to. There’s nothing to lose and we can help the guys.”

“Alright. They’re just under the TV. If you’ll need any help with them just call me over.” Till opened his notebook and started writing, returning to his unfinished poems.

Paul took their empty plates back to the kitchen, washed them and set them aside to dry. He then poured himself a glass of red wine and headed to the TV, where he immediately found the books. They were easily distinguishable; they were old, their paper yellow and wrinkled, faintly smelling of the sea itself. Paul took them and settled across Till, taking a notepad and a pen with him. He started to feel a certain kind of excitement as he opened the first book, hundreds of words spilling into the light, ready to flood Paul’s brain with new information.


	2. Chapter 2

_… The autumn weather brought many changes upon the island. The storms got more frequent, destroying life on the sea and land alike. But even with the elements wild and unrestrained, the locals have continued to celebrate the Harvest moon for centuries. All the damage that was done to the local harvest and to the fisheries did not stop to attract other people. The Locals were used to seeing merchants and sailors stopping at their ports, though the number of people that have arrived to the island (and even their looks) were too odd for just a simple business trade._

_While in the past, many believed in all kinds of myths and folklore, either saying that the people fascinated with the most ordinary plants, trinkets, and everyday household items, were either coming from the moon or the sea. The present more sensible overlook suggest that the records of these people were actually the first appearances of common tourism._

_Comparing these records with the local calendars, all points suggest such a phenomenon. The sudden increase in population would help get rid of the losses of the local economy; no matter how many dead fish or burned fields and gardens they had, the visiting people would always even the gap out. Unfortunately, the last record of this periodic appearance is over 150 years old._

Finally, Paul found something that could help him and the mermen to start their research with. He read through the books deep into the night before he almost face-planted into them, deciding he will leave some of the work for the next day.

So here he was, with a coffee and a breakfast, pouring over the books once again. He took some notes, scribbled down anything he deemed important and skipped over the useless stuff. He was quite eager to show all of this to Richard, perhaps he will know more, or maybe Doom will. Paul barely acknowledged Till; a concentrated hum was his answer to the bigger man’s good morning.

The beeping of the stove disrupted his focus on the writing; Paul looked up and left his notepad be and ran into the kitchen.

“What’s all this supposed to be?” Till looked over the mess Paul had left all over the room.

“I’m making the guys some pancakes, I don’t think they had them yet,” Paul said proudly as he threw the last of the batter onto the pan.

“Well, how nice of you. Just try and don’t burn the house down while doing so, okay?” Till ruffled Paul’s unkempt hair, successfully turning it into a bird’s nest. He stole a couple of pancakes for himself and headed to the table. “Did you find anything interesting?”

“Yeah I did, I’m gonna discuss it with the guys today.”

“Okay, but don’t forget we have to finish our work from yesterday. I don’t want to abandon it when we’re almost done.”

“Don’t worry.” Paul smiled as he put the fresh mountain of pancakes into a basket, together with some fruits, jams and a big jar of Nutella. “I’ll show it to them now or when we’ll have lunch.” He picked up his notes and the books as well and added them into the basket. Right before Paul left, he stopped behind Till and ruffled his hair too, laughing at the other man’s annoyed grunts.

Paul made his way down to the sea, the air around him was already warm, promising another hot day. He went straight onto the pier and sat down at the widened end, where some of their blankets were left. Before he could completely straighten one of them for himself he already heard the familiar splashing of water behind himself.

Not far from him two tails twisted and turned and soon enough, their owners appeared just as well. Both of the mermen did not waste their time and crawled onto the pier, making the poor wooden planks creak under their weight.

“Good morning!” Paul chuckled as he slowly took out the prepared breakfast and turned around, both hands holding plates full of food.

“Good morning, Paul.” Doom smiled, patiently nestling next to the blanket.

“Paulie!” Richard beamed, crawling to the smaller man’s legs and attempting to hug him.

“H-hey, calm down! Why can’t you behave like your friend here, huh?” Paul laughed, putting the plates down. “A little thank you for yesterday’s work. You guys can choose whatever topping you want, but be quick. Once Till discovers I took the whole Nutella jar he’s gonna be mad.”

Paul laughed even more as he watched the mermen devour their plates. Neither of them tried to eat properly and soon both of them were covered in jams and totally dirty. He gladly gave them more, passing them a bowl of strawberries, blueberries and bananas to go with it. He occasionally stole a berry or two, waiting for them to finish up. He could hear some noise behind them so he turned around and saw Till heading back to the platform, overlooking it and planning their work for today. Doom turned around too and as he saw him he swallowed the last of his food and jumped back into the water.

“Thank you Paul, it was delicious!”

“No problem!” Paul shouted back and turned towards Richard, “and what about you? Satisfied as well?”

“Mmhm.” The merman nodded, cleaning some of the Nutella from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. “You’re the best.”

“I know.” Paul smirked. He leaned closer as if to kiss the merman but turned his head to the side and licked off the last remains of the chocolate treat. Richard’s breath hitched and he immediately turned his head, catching Paul’s lips with his own.

“I love when your kisses are this sweet,” Richard mumbled, licking Paul’s bottom lip in return, “makes me always crave for more.”

“There’s always more for you.” Paul chuckled. “But not now. We have to get back there and help them out.” He had to smile at the merman’s rolling eyes and disappointing sigh, “but before we do, I have something to show you.” He raised his finger to catch his attention. Paul collected the empty plates and put them back into the basket, exchanging them with his collected notes.

“I managed to find something for you. It’s not much, but it’s something,” he opened the books in front of the merman and laid them down onto the blanket and then he handled him the notes he managed to take.

“Uh, interesting.” Richard nervously laughed as he squinted at the notes.

“Right?! This might help us after all!”

“Uh-huh.”

“Is something wrong, Richard?” Paul’s excitement faltered as he looked at the merman.

“I- well, that depends, really.” Richard embarrassingly looked down, feeling blood rushing to his cheeks. “We’ve never talked about this, as I didn’t deem it important but, well-” he looked up and sighed. “-it looks like you worked really hard on it, but I can’t read any of it. I can’t read at all.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s okay, Reesh. I can teach you.” Paul smiled reassuringly, sneaking his arm around Richard’s shoulders. “Let me tell then you what I found and later today I can start teaching you.”

“You’d do that for me?”

“Of course.” Paul nodded and kissed him again, enjoying the merman’s eagerness to return each purse of his lips.

“Love you.”

“Love you too.”

He was about to kiss the merman again when a shout had interrupted him: “Leave this for later! It’s time to work again!”

Richard chuckled at Till’s additional comments and with a sigh turned towards the sea. “Looks like we have no other choice, huh?”

“No, we don’t. Let’s go.” Paul ruffled Richard’s hair and rose to his feet, collecting his notes and the books back into the basket. The merman rolled off the pier and slowly made his way towards Doom and Till.

They once again started to move the stones about, turning the beach into a small construction site. They managed to pave most of the platform, even though the mermen had problems with moving around once they got out of the water; they still helped a lot with the heavier pieces, setting them down themselves. Till and Paul then busied themselves with smoothening and aligning the rocks and before they knew it, their work was almost finished. So after their afternoon lunch and afternoon pause, Paul and Richard managed to slip away, taking the boat and leaving for one of the many deserted beaches, leaving the other men to finish the work alone.

“I hope Till won’t be mad at us for going away,” Richard said as he crawled to Paul, who was setting down a blanket and taking out the books.

“Nah, you saw him. He likes to finish his work alone, that way he knows if everything is okay.”

“Alright.”

Richard had settled above Paul, laying on his side and letting the other man lean on his body, acting as a makeshift headrest. Paul automatically handed him a packet of cookies and let him have it. Richard chuckled and kissed his cheek as a thank you, ripping the seal open.

“I’ve never realized that you actually can’t read.” Paul smiled as he thumbed through his notes.

“I never thought I’d have any use for it. There’s no need for learning your alphabets when we barely come in contact with you.”

“Well, that’s about to change.” Paul found an empty page and then began to write down the alphabet, trying to do it as neatly as possible. Once he was finished he turned towards the merman and slowly started showing him each letter, giving the merman a pen and a piece of paper too, for him to try and write the individual letters down. It took him some time but eventually Richard managed to copy Paul’s movements, intently listening to him and trying to read out simple words and then sentences. Paul knew it will take him at least a few days to read and write on his own, however he could already see the progress the merman was making and felt rather proud.

When Paul felt like he taught him enough for that day he took the papers away and put in front of them the books instead. He opened them at the pages where he left his bookmarks and read everything that was in them to Richard. While he was explaining the stuff he found he saw Richard’s concentrated stare as he nodded to all the new information he received.

“So, what do you think?”

“I think that the elders are keeping a lot from us. While tourism makes sense, those people could also be some of ours.”

“You really think that those people the books mentioned were you guys? How was that even possible to see you _walking_ among us?”

“I don’t know. If the elders weren’t so stuck up I’d ask them, though I doubt they’d tell me anything at all.”

“Well, the last mentions of these people in the book are 150 years old and the book itself was written in 1950s, so it has been over 200 years since the last appearance, if not more. I don’t think anyone will know anything about it.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem. I know they know, that’s why they keep us away from those caves.”

“Which caves?” Paul sat up and turned towards the merman. “I know you’ve mentioned something about forbidden places.”

“A system of caves on the north-east of the island. It’s pretty in there, but you can get easily lost.”

“Okay, fine. So, we have weird people walking among the locals in the past, a system of caves and your restlessness during full moons, and on top of that, bad weather,” Paul counted on his fingers, “This is getting weird with each new thing we put together.” He leaned back onto the merman, resting his head on his chest.

“I find it interesting actually,” Richard sighed and leaned down, stealing a quick kiss from the man, “we could uncover this mystery together and maybe I’ll be able to spend some more time up _here_.” He patted the sand on the ground.

“Reesh, I don’t want anything to happen to you. This could be dangerous. Also it sounds ridiculous. What if it’s just not dead fish and drowned people during that time, what if it kills you too? Lightning striking the water and all that jazz, y’know.”

“I’m glad you’re worried.” Richard took Paul into his arms and moved him off of himself and onto the blanket. “But you don’t need to, I’ll be fine.” He lowered himself onto the man and started kissing him. He moved his hands all over him, squeezing his hips and massaging his nipples, liking the way Paul hummed in pleasure. It didn’t take him long to take away Paul’s clothes and soon he had the man laying under him, completely naked and fully responding to every touch.

“You persuasive bastard.” Paul supported himself on his elbows and lightly pushed the merman away and onto his back, throwing one of his legs over him for support. He lowered himself onto the merman and trailed a row of kisses from his mouth down his throat and chest, nipping at his skin all the way to where his skin disappeared into the smooth scales. He was well familiar with the swell of the scales right under it and didn’t hesitate to run his mouth across it, his tongue disappearing between the scales. Right as he did so, the merman arched up and moaned in shock, his left hand shooting down and grabbing Paul by his hair. Paul snorted and with a smirk lowered himself down to run his tongue over and over again, right over the bulge.

He stopped when Richard’s cock started peaking out and helped it out with rhythmic strokes of his hand. Richard himself brought Paul back up, hungrily kissing him and sneaking his own hand down to the smaller man’s cock as well. They started stroking each other, moaning into their mouths and pumping their hips into the other man’s hand. Paul from time to time switched from his ardent strokes to fingering the merman, his fingers disappearing right below Richard’s cock into the slit, making him wail and trash in pleasure.

“Fuck, I’m close,” growled Paul and bit into Richard’s jaw, immediately licking the bite. His muscles were tense and he could feel the building of warmth that was about to be released.

“I know, baby.” Richard bit into Paul’s lip then continuing to kiss him. “Me too,” his voice hitched as Paul’s fingers once again disappeared into his body.

It really didn’t take long, as Richard once again arched in pleasure and moaned right into Paul’s ears the smaller man came. The merman continued to stroke him, spreading his cum over his cock and letting some of it fall onto him. Paul whimpered and as his body shook his strokes became more powerful, making the merman orgasm as well. With a final stroke of his fingers and a pump of his fist, Richard’s cock twitched and spurted cum all over himself in thick stripes of translucent white.

Paul collapsed onto his lover and buried his head into the crook of his neck, taking deep breaths and inhaling his scent. When his heart slowed down a bit, he raised himself onto his elbows and looked down at the merman; Richard was already looking back at him with a gentle smile across his lips. Paul stroked some of Richard’s hair out of his face and buried his fingers in it, slowly caressing him across his head.

He still felt butterflies in his stomach when he looked down at the other man; he would have never guessed that he’d end up with somebody so kind, gentle yet strong as Richard. He felt funny how quickly he got used to the merman. Till still had to occasionally nudge him or shut him up in front of other people, the smaller man not realizing that people did not have everyday interactions with mermaids. Or mermen in his case.

Of course that sometimes he got irritated as well; Richard could be quite headstrong and reckless and it always took Paul a lot of energy to keep the merman in line so he wouldn’t cause any trouble. But thankfully these occasions were rare and if they had any disagreement, most of the time it ended in intense fucking.

“What?” Richard whispered, kissing one of Paul’s palms.

“Nothing. Just thinking how lucky I am.”

“Oh you’re very lucky.”

Richard took Paul’s head into his hands and brought him closer, giving him a long, deep kiss. They stayed on the blanket for some time and after they both felt rested, Paul dragged Richard into the sea to wash off their bodies. Richard then took Paul into his arms and swam with him for a bit, letting him lay on his chest while he floated on the water.

“Do you _really_ want to look into the whole moon thing?” Paul asked after some time, sneaking his arms around Richard’s neck.

The merman stopped swimming around and grabbed Paul around his waist for support, “I’d like to, yeah. Will you help me?”

“We’ll have to be careful, okay? And you will listen to me, no talking back.”

“Yes, sir!” Richard smirked as he bent his head down and left a row of feather-light kisses on Paul’s neck. “Thank you.”


	3. Chapter 3

“No, no, that’s a b, d is written the other way around.” Hearing the irritated huff made Paul smile. For the past few days he’s been teaching Richard how to write and read and was quite amazed by the merman’s fast progress. He was still making mistakes, though even those didn’t sway him away from his goal; he could understand and write simple sentences and was overjoyed whenever he spelled a difficult word the right way.

The path to the gazebo was practically finished so any free time Richard had he spent it either learning or forcing Paul to read, to help the merman gather as much information as possible about the oncoming full moon. Unfortunately, there was not anything else apart from the small excerpt from one of the old books, the rest was just theories which Richard quickly rebutted, explaining their absurdity. Paul didn’t say it out loud, but he was happy that they didn’t find anything else; since the mermen confessed how the moon phases made them twitchy, he could clearly see how Richard became a bit more snappy and emotional – usually, he wouldn’t recognize anything different in his behaviour but the notes he made and the information the mermen gave him slowly made more and more sense. He tried not to think about all the possible outcomes of the moonlight; on one hand he was scared and paranoid about it possibly harming either him or Richard, on the other hand he was absolutely curious about what would actually happen.

Right now, he was sitting on the pier, correcting Richard’s texts of sentences and becoming more and more amused by the merman’s wonky writing. He had his feet submerged in the water while Richard swam in circles in front of him, impatiently waiting for Paul to be done. The merman knew that if he asked about the books again the man would get angry, yet the unscratchable itch within him grew stronger every single day, turning the small curiosity into a full-time obsession. Since he was not bound by the rules of his school anymore, he wanted to know more, even if there was a risk of getting hurt in the process.

“I thought that p is written the other way around,” he said, vaguely sketching the letter in the air with his finger.

“P is upside down b. Well, kinda.”

“Aah, okay.”

Paul watched the merman for a while, contemplating the past few days and the information they discovered.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he said after a while, nervously twiddling his pen between his fingers.

“What?”

“The caves and stuff. I don’t like it. There must be a viable reason for the elders to forbid you from going there.”

“Oh, come on.” Richard’s tail twitched in irritation, “I’ve been bossed around my entire life by them and what good did it bring me, huh?”

“Well, they might be right with this though. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Hey,” Richard swam closer, putting his arms on Paul’s thighs, “It’s gonna be okay. We’ll be okay. Let me have this, I’ve been restricted by the school for long enough and now I can finally do whatever I want.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you must find the most dangerous thing on this island and try it out.”

“Who said anything about trying? I just want to learn more.” Richard smiled and hoisted himself up, briefly kissing Paul on his brow before falling back into the sea.

“Fine. Learning is fine, but nothing more, okay?” Paul smiled in defeat, watching the merman grin back at him in joy.

…

For the couple of the few next days, Paul kept bringing all kinds of books to the merman, reciting anything that mentioned either the island, the weather, the moon, or the population of the island. Of course, most of it was useless; the books were old and only had passages about ship trade, local businesses, or traditions. These dead ends made the merman quite irritated, he wanted to know more but his inability to read properly and the slow process of getting any new information only added more fuel to the fire.

Right now, the merman was playing with a pen, laying on one of the many beaches, and listening to Paul thumbing through the last book he brought with him. The ever ongoing splashes of the waves were forcing his mind to repeatedly wander away, his thoughts once again running astray, not really being able to catch the mumbled words coming somewhere from Paul’s direction.

“Did you hear me?”

“Hmm? What?”

“Till gave me some old diary. I think it has something that could interest you.” Paul had to snicker at Richard’s abrupt movement; the merman shot up, partially entangling himself into the blanket he was lying on and then slowly crawled into the shade Paul was sitting in.

“A diary?”

“Yeah, stole it from some granny apparently. And while the most of it is just filled with recipes and the guys she found hot, there’s a couple of pages dedicated to some trip to the north-east of the island.”

“To the caves?”

“Seems so.”

“Well? C’mon read it to me!” Richard nudged Paul’s thigh, straightening the blanket under himself.

“There’s not much so far, really.” Paul turned a couple of pages before starting to read out loud: the woman decided to go on a trip with her friend, hiking across the island and searching for new, undiscovered places for the two of them to enjoy. One of the days they were scouting around the territory near the caves; she described it as a very-hard-to-reach place but that the cave system was wonderful and scary at the same time. Among her entries, there were small sketches which worked for her as pseudo-map – she described how she and her friend had to tie together multiple ropes to not get lost in there as it was multi-levelled and each tunnel had at least one crossroad, leading towards many more crevices and caves hidden within.

Paul had to stop for a moment as the handwriting suddenly changed, becoming more jagged and uneven, as if she was writing it in a hurry.

“ _We found bodies. Oh my God we found skeletons in the little ponds of water that were scattered all over. And not just human, but of some big fish too. Sharks? Killer Whales? I don’t know. But it’s scary as hell. My guess is that the sharks got lost here and couldn’t find their way out. The same goes for the human bodies. Fuck this. I’m not getting near this place ever again.”_

“Well, shit.” Richard said, siting up and leaning over Paul’s shoulder to see at least the doodles of the caves and skeletons in the diary.

“Something tells me,” Paul whispered, “Something tells me that those weren’t sharks and humans. Those were your people.”

“Yeah, sounds like it.”

“It’s a goddamn death trap. Promise me you won’t go near that place, please. Whatever is inside is not worth it.” Paul set down the diary and grabbed Richard’s hand, slightly massaging it. The merman did not need to know that it was more for his own comfort.

“Is it though?”

“What more proof do you need?” To emphasize his words, Paul got up and straddled the other man, lifting his head into his palms, “They came in there, for whatever reason, they got lost and they died. Or worse, there might be undercurrents and they got imprisoned there, starving to death. It makes sense to get as far away as possible and not to allow anyone in.”

“Yeah, but why is the place connected with the moon cycles and us? Why that specific place? Why the secrecy?”

“Richard, please, stop.” Paul squeezed his hands, stroking his thumbs across the merman’s smooth cheeks. “I know it drives you crazy, but please, listen to me. That place is a trap. Don’t go near it. Just stay here with me, okay?” He smiled, letting his eyes linger on the merman for a moment and then diving down to steal feather-light kisses from his lips. He could feel how the frown and the tension slowly left the other man’s face, gradually being replaced by quiet chuckling.

“You’re the devil incarnate, do you know that?” Richard snaked his arms around the smaller man’s waist, “with you persuasion techniques and all.”

“Don’t know if I should take this as a compliment or not.” Paul laughed in return, letting his arms slide down, bumping over the merman’s collar and stopping on his collarbones. “Just promise me you won’t do anything stupid alright?”

“… Fine. Anything to make you happy.”

Raising his arms to Paul’s shoulders, he brought the smaller man towards himself, cutting any additional conversation with his lips. And when his kisses were this persistent and needy, Paul knew that there is going to be only one outcome out of this. He let himself enjoy the wandering hands on his body, the occasional squeezes and the sinfully skilled tongue that was too good at undoing him bit by bit. He knew that the conversation was far from over but as long as the other man is kept busy, he won’t have to stress over him getting hurt just because of his curiosity.

Meanwhile, Richard was in the process of trying to untie the string of the other man’s swimming trunks, only being successful on the third try. As soon as the knot loosened, he tugged at the hem, waiting for the man to step out of them. Just as Paul did so, the merman was ready to flip them over though Paul’s hand on his chest stopped him.

“Let me try something out,” he whispered, his hand travelling down Richard’s chest, “I think you’re gonna like it.”

He grabbed the merman’s dick which was already halfway peaking out and started stroking it, twisting his fist in circles to coax it completely out. It took him only a few short moments to get him to his full hardness; after all, he knew what the other man liked quite well. And on top of it, the moans and mewls made him stiff too, without any help or touch.

When he was finally satisfied with the situation down there, Paul collected as much of Richard’s slick as possible, letting his hand anchor by the base of the merman’s cock. He then rested his brow against Richard’s and let his breath calm down a bit before continuing. With his eyes wide opened, Paul searched for Richard’s reaction as he slowly let his middle and ring finger disappear under Richard’s cock into the slit. Immediately, the the merman let out a loud moan, one of his hands grabbing Paul by the bicep and squeezing hard.

“You okay?”

“Fuck,” Richard panted, “do it again.” He nudged him with his nose, waiting for more.

Chuckling, Paul once again pushed his fingers inside, absolutely loving the moans the merman let out. He could feel the tail twitching under him, every stroke making the muscles spasm and coil in pleasure. He slid with his head to Richard’s shoulder and anchored it there, repeatedly licking and kissing the taut tendons in his neck. A stray hand grabbed his own dick and before he could realize what’s going on, it was guiding him down, towards his working fingers. Richard stroked himself with it, bumping it against his own cock and letting it glide down across the slit showing Paul what he wanted.

“Shit” Paul panted, his hip gyrating on their own, humping down onto Richard, “Are you sure?”

“Fucking do it before I lose my mind.”

“Oh Fuck.” The smaller man slowly let his fingers slip out of the merman, the smooth flesh inside rhythmically squeezing the fingers until they were gone completely, quickly being replaced by his cockhead instead. Paul wanted to go slowly, to test the waters, but that impatient hand had returned, grabbing him and almost forcing him into that tight space. So he slowly pushed inside, his groan being accompanied by Richard’s loud moan. The more he pushed himself in, the less strength the merman had; at first he fell back onto his elbows and when even that was not enough, he let himself go, sprawling across the blanket and arching, his body helping Paul to move forward.

Paul fell on him, only managing to catch himself on his elbows, burying his face into Richard’s chest. When he finally got his breath back he spread his legs and supported himself on his knees. Looking down, he saw Richard’s face twisted in pleasure, his teeth sunken into his bottom lip and head thrown back. He saw the quickly rising and falling chest, droplets of sweat running down, pooling around his navel and some rolling further down to his cock. Richard’s dick was sandwiched between them, rubbing against Paul’s belly with every push of his hips.

What ever he was doing felt apparently great, as the merman’s pleas turned into a high-pitched chant, his own hands anchoring on Paul’s ass, forcing him to fuck harder and deeper. He didn’t really need to persuade him a lot, the tight wet flesh squeezing around Paul was making the smaller man delirious without any outside encouragement. His tempo gradually sped up, his hips quickly slapping against Richard’s and the delicious wets sounds chasing them towards their own climaxes. Paul tried to shut Richard up by his mouth and tongue, though neither of them had the strength to focus on the sloppy kisses, both ending nestled in each other’s neck, licking and biting the sensitive skin, each chasing their own pleasure.

It didn’t take long and Paul came with a ruff groan, ramming his hips twice to Richard’s and spilling inside, staying that way. Richard answered with a few quiet moans as his hand immediately disappeared down, grabbing his own cock and finishing with a few rough strokes. Once his own orgasm hit his muscles tightened in spasm, making Paul howl; the overstimulation being too much for his spent cock. He pulled out, completely dosed in Richard’s slick and cum.

“Ah fuck, shit,” he managed to pant out before collapsing next to the merman, exhausted and still basking in the afterglow. He swept the sweat away from his brow, letting his forearm rest on his head, “I didn’t know we could do that.” He silently laughed, peaking at his lover from his make-shift shade.

“Oh we could’ve. I just didn’t want you to know that I’m _that_ sensitive down there.” The merman sniggered, poking Paul’s side. He then turned over and nestled atop of Paul’s chest, getting comfortable.

“Sure, sure.” Paul grabbed one of his arms and snaked it around his chest, letting Richard lay his head on his shoulder; he was too tired to even talk and a mid-afternoon nap sounded like the best idea ever. So he let his head rest on his forearm, the other hand finding its place on the merman’s shoulder and his mind quickly drifting away, being carried by the soft splashing of the sea waves nearby.

…

The man woke up with an uncomfortable dull pain in his neck, he laid at an odd angle, his limbs and torso turned to one side while his head laid on the other, wonderfully straining the muscles around his shoulders. While he sometimes woke up in unusual positions, this one was too much even for his sleep-induced body. As if somebody turned him that way. As if somebody carefully shoved him aside. _Shit_.

Rapidly sitting up, Paul firstly cursed his spinning head and then his aching neck; not only was the merman gone but all the papers and books, including the diary, were opened, thrown about and a familiar line in the sand was leading from them straight into the sea.

“Stupid motherfucker,” Paul cursed. It was quite easy to deduce what has happened – once Paul was fast asleep the merman detangled himself and with a last, fast search he crawled into the water, heading to the godforsaken place.

“I’m gonna kill him if he survives that.” Paul nervously joked under his breath, quickly collecting all his stuff into his back, heading to the boat. He didn’t know what to do or who to call. The only thing he knew was where to go and boy, he didn’t want to go there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Btw, as of today, I am now a certified diver, YAY! ^^


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big fat juicy thank you goes to [Nightabsentia](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/nightabsentia/pseuds/nightabsentia) for being a wonderful beta ♡

It didn’t take him long to drive back to the cottage; Paul had become quite skilled at navigating through the waters in any kind of weather or daylight. It may have been only early afternoon though the angry heavy clouds that suddenly surrounded the island gave him the impression of an oncoming evening.

“Till! Till! Where are you?” He shouted as he ran inside the cottage, throwing away empty plates and glasses, “Of course he’s not here when I need him.” Paul’s nervous blabbering intensified, his hands shakily grabbing a hoodie and a raincoat off the hooks on the wall - he was expecting that it’d start to rain any second. He picked up his bag and stuffed it with a flashlight, some bandages from the bathroom (just to be safe), and grabbed a couple of the many ropes Till had laying around in one of the sheds outside and threw it into the pickup parked outside. As the last measure he took out his phone and dialled up the bigger man, running to the garden to check if he’s not working there. Nothing. Not even anywhere else around the property and the phone’s deaf answer only riled Paul up more. It’s ironic that Till had demanded to have his phone with him, because when it came to him, Till only answered Paul’s calls when he felt like it.

 _Ah fuck this._ Paul sighed, throwing the phone onto the passenger seat next to the backpack and hopped behind the steering wheel. _And fuck everybody too._ He started up the engine and with a strong push onto the gas pedal the car shot forward, quickly disappearing onto the road curving above the cottage.

He didn’t even know where to go, just the general direction of the damn place. It wasn’t _that_ difficult to get to that part of the island, after all, the only proper road connecting the cardinal points of the island was the one he was on, circling the entirety of the land. There were of course other, smaller ones, but he didn’t want to risk getting stuck in one of the many villages with the road being too fucked up even for the pickup. There was only so much the car could take, and a ‘road’ made out of boulders the size of Paul himself was just too much.

While driving, Paul picked up his phone and began scrolling through the maps in it, finding the best way to get to the cave system. Luckily, the North-East didn’t have that many rock formations and steep rocky cliffs as the south did so the search for a (in)conspicuous peninsula was quickly resolved. He set his GPS to what he guessed was the place and pushed the pedal to the metal, hoping to catch up with the merman.

The rain caught up with him pretty quickly, the downpour made his curses even more colourful as he angrily let the wipers sweep the little rivets running across the windshield. He didn’t mind the temperature drop, but if the rain continued this strong, it would take him twice as much to get there and he was already counting with about an hour or two of travel. At least the pitter-patter of the droplets calmed his mind a bit, it had been some time since it rained there.

When he was over halfway there, Paul already had a more or less concrete plan; he gets as close as he can, ties all the ropes together and ties them to the car or a nearest tree, then he gets inside and will hope that he will find his way in and won’t get stuck there as the other unlucky visitors. He was about to call Till again when the radio broadcast caught his attention:

“… _let’s hope that the weather gets better, yeah? What a sad start it would be for the festival. Luckily, we were able to hide all the fireworks before they got wet, so don’t worry people, unless the storm gets stronger, we are still going to have our beautiful annual fireworks ready…”_

 _Oh fuck. The festival. The goddamnn moon._ Paul growled in frustration and sped up, hoping to make up any time he might have lost. Maybe if the clouds stay, everything could turn out okay. Maybe. At times like these he wished he could just strap a walkie-talkie to the merman and shout at him whenever. It still got him pretty angry when the merman’s stubborn head decided to go or do something reckless and there was no way of stopping him once he disappeared under the water. Though even if he managed to do that, Richard would probably lose it in the first hour. He still had to come up something, even if he had to glue a GPS to his tail.

While he was musing about a glue strong enough to hold onto the merman and the hilarious image of Richard looking like a dolphin with an antenna sticking out, the North-East coast unveiled itself in front of him. The rain turned from a heavy downpour into a slight drizzle and to Paul’s annoyance, the sun was already poking through in some places, quickly evaporating the fresh moisture from the ground. His phone beeped and he got off the road onto a dirt one which led him towards the coast; the closer he got the more anxious he became – what if Richard’s not there? What if he already managed to hurt himself? He sped once again, dangerously making his way down towards the only rock formation nearby.

Ten more minutes and suddenly he came to a stop; the road had ended in front of him, the only indicator that it might be the place was the wall of rock in front of him surrounded by bushes and trees, plus the faint sound of the nearby sea. He jumped out of the car, strapped his backpack onto himself, took all the ropes and headed to the wall. He quickly discovered that the wall was a giant slate of the rock leaning against another rock, much larger, and that there was just enough space between them for a couple of humans to walk through.

Tying the rope to the nearest tree, Paul jumped and crawled over some bushes and started abseiling between the two jagged rocks. His foot slipped once or twice; the rain didn’t make it easy to get inside but his grumpy mood got boosted once he got to the lowest point and saw a giant crack, leading inside the rock. Paul took a deep breath and walked inside, hoping for the best. On one side, he was glad that it was much drier inside and he did not have to worry about slipping. On the other, it got quickly dark and he had to pull out his flashlight, illuminating the tall walls around him. So far, it only lead straight down but once Paul moved about ten meters in, the crack rapidly turned right where there were two possible ways to go; either continue forward and up or left and down. Logically he went down; Paul knew he was still pretty far from the water and it will take him some time till he gets on the same level as the sea.

Continuing with this logic in mind, Paul moved deeper and deeper into the cave. He had to return a couple of times as all he found was either a dead end or a steep way up, ending with a crack and bit of sunlight coming through. It didn’t take him more then half an hour before he encountered one the many ponds. He took out the old diary and compared the woman’s notes to the progress he made. He was going the right way alright, meaning if the right way lead across the many ponds to the largest one, where supposedly were the bodies. He tied the rope to another one and continued deeper, completely getting swallowed by the surrounding darkness.

With the diary it didn’t take him long to get to his destination; he entered a sudden bubble in the cave, tall and spacious, with a large pond of the sea water merging with one of the tilted walls. There was a slight light as well, the cave was tall enough to reach the top of the rock and have a hole in the ceiling with some grass and bushes falling into it. Paul set his backpack down and immediately ran to the pond, looking inside. Not only he could see some scattered bones inside, but also deep down were holes, small and big tunnels twisting and creating an underwater maze. Paul got up from the pond and started looking for more possible entrances, though this looked like the final dead end of the cave system. The only thing he found were torn pieces of clothing and other unidentifiable rags.

“Fucking hell.”

And of course, the merman was nowhere to be seen. Paul fished out his phone and speed dialled Till, hoping he would answer him and tell him that Richard is back at the fishery, stuffing himself with some food. No such luck. He didn’t even had any signal in there, so he quickly put the phone away and ran back to the pond looking for any signs of movement. Nothing. How was he supposed to attract the merman to him?

Then it hit him. There was one way Richard had found him in the past, while he was stranded in the middle of the sea. Picking his flip knife and opening it, Paul wasted no time and slashed across his palm. Red hot blood immediately started to follow the sharp steel end of the blade, making Paul cringe and hiss in pain. Of course, he was careful not to make the cut too deep so he wouldn’t end up with a scar. He then submerged the bleeding hand into the water, wincing at the sharp sting shooting up his arm. He watched as the blood dissolved, faint red stripes merging with the water and getting carried away. Over time the sting got replaced with numbness and Paul just decided to lean against a nearby stone, relaxing and keeping his hand below the water line.

He barely had the time to let his muscles properly rest when he felt a wave of water, as if something was pushing it from the bottom up. He immediately looked down, just in time to see a familiar shape peek from one of the many holes in the pond. In a matter of seconds the merman swam up and breached the water, a surprised grimace coming face to face with Paul’s own.

“Wh-what are you doing here?” The merman slurred, his eyes jumping all over the smaller man.

“Me?! What the fuck are _you_ doing here? For fuck’s sake, why haven’t you listened to me?” Paul grabbed Richard’s head, letting his fingers snake into his wet hair.

“I did listen to you. I just couldn’t resist.” Richard smiled back, focusing on the smaller man’s face.

“Are you okay?” Paul whispered, turning Richard’s head from side to side. Immediately, he could see that the merman had extremely dilated pupils. Looking at his body, he saw multiple bruises and scratches – his shoulders were scratched, the red lines twisting around his biceps to his elbows, his bottom lip seemed to be split and puffy, and as he glanced down, he noticed that Richard’s knuckles were in no better shape than the rest of his body. As he let his fingers rest in Richard’s hair, he could feel and then see a warm trickle of blood running down his temple; he definitively had to bang his head against something while he was down there. “What has happened to you?”

“I’m fine, really.” The merman cuddled into one of Paul’s palms. “The currents are just strong down there and I bumped into a couple of walls. Can’t see much in the dark and all that, y’know.”

“Oh god. Richard I fucking told you this is a death trap. How are you gonna get out of here?”

“I don’t really care at the moment, I only want to take a nap now. It was really difficult to get in here.”

“Of course it fucking was! You weren’t supposed to come here in the first place!”

“Hey, we’re both okay, that’s all that matters now.” Slipping out of Paul’s grasp, the merman made himself comfortable at the bank, crossing his arms and resting his head on them.

“Oh fuck you!” Paul got up, exasperated by the merman’s indifference. He knew that Richard wouldn’t usually act this way, so the carelessness coming from him unnerved the man even more. He got up and got back to his backpack, thinking of the ways how to safely get the merman out of there. While opening his water bottle, he already knew the probable answer; there was no other way than either the way he came from or one of the many holes in the bottom of the pond, and all of those ways were a no go for the merman. The strong currents underneath would sooner or later knock him unconscious and kill him, while the way he came from was too difficult for the merman to crawl out of. Paul ran out of ideas sooner than he started to come up with any possible way out and he did not like it. At all. At least the merman is okay, Paul would probably go insane within the caves if he haven’t found him.

“How the hell am I going to get you out of here?” Paul mumbled as he washed his wounded palm, “Will I have to drag you out of this damn cave?” He looked back up at the merman, who kept laying on his arm, letting his tail lazily wave in the water behind him.

“Don’t know. It’s comfy in here though, we could stay.”

“Stay? For the rest of your life? The fuck is wrong with you?” Paul bandaged his hand and picked the merman by his chin, looking into his eyes. They were almost black, his green irises barely visible and his lids heavy on his eyes. His worry started to outweigh the anger in him pretty quickly; not only did Richard get bruised all over, his slurred speech and lazy behaviour did not sit well with him. Paul himself felt perfectly fine (as one can in such situation) and seeing Richard act this way made him worry over all the things he had read in the books. This damn place definitively had a bad influence on him.

“God dammit,” Paul sighed and sat down in front of the merman, trying to come up with something at least a little bit sensible.

…

All his ideas were for nothing. He always got stuck in the same places. If he brought the scuba set, he’d die down there as well, if he brought Till here, it would take them forever to take the merman out and the hole in the ceiling was not big enough for the merman to fit it, even if they managed to somehow hoist him all the way up by their ropes.

Speaking of the hole, Paul looked up in alarm. He knew that it was already late in the evening, coming close to midnight, what he didn’t expect though, was the moon beam coming from the crack down into the cave. Straight onto the pond. Oh no.

“Richard?” He got up and walked over to the merman who was letting himself being carried by the water, completely stretched over the pond.

“Hm?”

“Get out of the water.”

“Why? It’s really comfortable right now, like swimming in that sparkling water of yours.”

“Please get out. I don’t like what’s going on.” The tension in Paul’s voice reached its peak; maybe he was insane but all those things aligning so perfectly made the hairs on his arms stand up.

“Paul, relax, it’s just light and bubbly water. Look, it’s harmless.” Instead of listening to Paul, Richard did the complete opposite. He turned over and dove down, disappearing under the silvery shimmering water.

“Come on!” Paul shouted, trying to make out any kind of shape under the strong reflection of the moon. Nothing. He put his hand into it, trying to disrupt the surface and see what’s going on but nothing has happened, the pond still held its watertight silver mirror on top of it.

The sound of a thunderstorm gave Paul a bit of hope, perhaps the clouds will obscure the moon and let him see properly. Still nothing. Only the rain returned, some of it falling through the crack and soiling the soft sand and smooth rocky ground around him. The complete quiet brought back the anxiety. A lightning and a sudden booming thunder. Drizzling rain. Nothing more.

“Richard! Please!” He was an adult man, but god, was he scared as a little kid right now. “Where are yo-“

Before he could even finish the sentence, the surface of the water started to move as if it was boiling and suddenly Richard jumped out, hissing in pain.

“Oh fuuuuck-” He turned around, his upper torso laying outside the water, “-it hurts!”

“Shit shit shit shit!” Paul grabbed him by his armpits and tried to drag him up from the water. The merman was absolutely hot to touch, Paul’s hands burned under Richard’s skin though he did not dare to let him go; Richard’s guttural wails of pain worked quite well as a fuel for Paul to get the merman to safety. He dragged and dragged him, putting all of his strength into his legs and moved away from the pond, which reflected not only the moonlight but every single lightning hitting all the places in the sky above them.

When he was far enough he collapsed onto his butt and hoisted Richard into his arms, cradling him and trying to calm his hyperventilating lover. He stroked his hair and panned his eyes over him to the pond when suddenly-

Paul held Richard in his arms, but instead where his chest would merge with his scales, there was just more skin, continuing down, to two strong, very human legs.


	5. Chapter 5

Legs. Two human legs. Like he has. Paul could not believe what he was seeing; he tried to shake his head, to blink away any hallucinations, he even almost tried pinching himself, but nothing had worked. He looked down at Richard’s face to see his reaction, though the merman was still clutching onto him, eyes screwed shut and trying to calm his own hissing breaths. He yet had to discover the change that had happened to him and by the state of shock he still was in, Paul could only imagine what his reaction is going to be.

“Richard? Are you okay?” Paul took his face into his hands and twisted him towards himself, trying to distract him from the news. While Richard had been hinting the past couple of days that he would love to know what it was like to have legs, the reality of it actually felt and looked quite different. Paul knew that Richard was strong both in mind and body, but this sudden and painful change looked like it was too much even for the merman. He just hoped that Richard will have enough strength not to do something (too) stupid.

“I don’t know I-“ The merman paused, wincing as he unconsciously slid one of his arms down his side, “What’s-“ He turned onto his back, his heart skipping a beat. He expected his fingers to slowly move from his skin onto his smooth scales yet they never came; instead, there was just more and more skin. His hand retaliated in shock, immediately griping Paul’s bicep instead.

“What the fuck!” he screamed, kicking his legs back and forth, not believing what he was seeing.

“Calm down, Jesus fuck! You’ll hurt yourself!” Paul grabbed the other man with his entire body, hugging him with his legs and arms from behind. He watched and listened how Richard sobbed and slowly began to realize what had happened. The merman attempted to claw his way back to the pond but Paul just flexed his muscles and didn’t give him any more chance at hurting himself.

“Please, calm down, Reesh, please,” he whispered into his ear, peppering him with kisses and light strokes of his hair, “Deep breaths, okay? In and out.”

With that, Richard grabbed him by his forearms and stared down at his legs. He tried to follow Paul’s advice but like with all things – it’s easier said than done. His brain still refused to cooperate with him and his lungs had a mind of their own as well, the erratic breathing was starting to make him dizzy. Any tears that threatened to escape Richard immediately blinked away, focusing hard on Paul’s soothing voice by his ear. His lover’s deep baritone helped to calm his breathing bit by bit; he gradually calmed his hyperventilating, his sobs turning into quiet wails filtered through his gritted teeth.

When Richard calmed him self enough to not to faint, he looked back down again, thoroughly studying his new appendages. He kept bending them in turns at his knees, raising them in the air and kicking the dust and sand on the ground. He wiggled his toes and rubbed them together, not knowing what to do with them. Paul watched him the entire time and if his partner wasn’t so stressed out, he would find it very endearing; he still felt how strong Richard’s heart kept beating and how his short breaths tickled the fine hairs on his forearm.

Only when Paul felt that the merman’s heart had slowed down and his breathing became a bit less laboured, he let his gaze follow Richard’s to properly see the changes himself. First immediate thing he had noticed was the lack of body hair; his shins and thighs were smooth like a new-born baby. He checked Richard’s face once more, looking for any sign of uncontrolled panic and when he saw none, he loosened the hold with his legs a bit, slowly pulling them aside. He could feel the flexing muscle under him, the pale but strong and thick legs wonderfully complimented the upper part of Richard’s body. They weren’t as long as he had expected, though that was only because he was used to the inhuman length of the merman’s tail; still, he seemed to end up a bit taller than Paul himself. When he finally set his legs next to Richard’s, his eyes also had the chance to skim across the merman’s _new_ crotch; well nothing new when it came to the general shape, but seeing him so hairless even down there made Paul’s lips’ corners twitch into the tiniest smirk. The situation did not change anywhere else on his body – his belly, his chest, his arms – everything was hairless.

Finally, Richard took a few deep breaths and looked above himself, meeting Paul’s eyes. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah. Holy shit.” Paul soothingly smiled. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah.” The merman swallowed. “Yeah, I think so.”

Paul slowly scooted away from behind the merman, choosing to sit beside him instead, letting one of his hand gently stroke Richard’s thigh. Richard cautiously did the same; he grabbed one of his thighs and lifted it up, feeling his muscles flex under his fingertips.

“Why did you not listen to me?”

“Because I wanted to know.” The merman let his leg go and covered Paul’s resting hand with his own. “I’m still freaking out, but a tiny part of me is also excited.”

Paul knew he was still unwell, as Richard’s breathing was far from normal and the small hysterical laughs he emitted once in a while only underlined the merman’s state of shock. He could also see the tiny tremors rocking his new body and all the goose bumps appearing across his it – Richard started to slowly cool down and being buck-ass naked in a wet cavern in the middle of the night was quite vividly showing on him.

“Stay here.” Paul squeezed Richard’s shoulder in reassurance and got up, jogging to his abandoned backpack. He dug into it, trying to find the rain coat and a blanket he brought with himself - that will have to do, he’d roll Richard into it and hope that the merman won’t get too cold and catch something. He was just setting aside the blanket when he heard the merman was moving. Of course he wouldn’t listen. Turning around, Paul sharply inhaled in surprise; Richard was trying to crawl back to the pond, one of his hands already grabbing the wet edge of the rock.

“No you don’t! You’ll drown, you idiot!” He ran over, grabbing the merman by his chest and wrestling him away from it, towards the blanket.

“Let me go, Paul! I wanna go back!” Richard’s raw dry wail shocked Paul into stillness, the panic had to momentarily overtake the merman again.

“Did it fry your brain too? You’ve got no gills and you can’t even walk-“ Paul overcame his surprise and moved in front of him, obscuring the view of the water, “-there’s no moonlight nor storm outside anymore, it’ll do nothing!”

Paul hoped that his stern voice and the frown in his voice would finally knock some sense into Richard; if his soothing voice and strokes across his back didn’t work, stern voice might. He immediately scrapped the idea though; his features quickly softened as the merman started to tremble again, quiet sobs escaping his parted lips.

“Yeah, okay,” Richard mumbled, picking at his arm. “Please help me.” He looked up, his eyes glassy and helpless.

If he had the energy, Paul would probably start arguing with him, but seeing him so helpless and scared and being pretty drained himself, he only sighed and bent down, gently cupping Richard’s jaw, “Of course.”

Kissing his brow, Paul picked up the rain coat and threw it around the merman’s shoulders. “Put this on, can’t let you catch a cold.” He smiled at him, helping him into it. Once Richard was covered, he unrolled the blanket and gently wrapped him in it, turning him into a sad but adorable burrito. He then returned for his backpack and put it on.

“I know it’s going to be a bit difficult but we gotta get out of here.” Paul came back to him, giving him his flashlight. “Hold onto that and wrap your arm around my shoulder.”

Richard wordlessly did so, gasping in surprise when Paul managed to pick him up from the ground, bridal-style.

“Don’t get used to it, you’re still fucking heavy,” Paul spat between his gritted teeth, focusing on not slipping as he grabbed the rope and moved towards the exit. He gave the cave last onceover and then disappeared into the tunnel.

…

With many breaks, they managed to get out. Richard made a couple of objections, seeing Paul sweat under him, yet anytime he tried to walk on his own he miserably failed. In the end, they made a compromise; he was heavily leaning on Paul while securing his grip on the stone walls. When they finally made it outside, it was already an early morning and the world was colouring itself in its usual day colours.

As soon as he could, Paul let Richard down and rested him against one of the pickup’s tires. He breathlessly bent over, trying to catch his breath and letting the sweat trickle down his face onto the ground.

“I’ve never been this far out.” He looked back at the merman who was looking up and around, letting his fingers dig into the dirt and pick at the dry grass.

“Yeah, well-” Paul straightened up “-It’s just the beginning. Let’s go.” He opened the passenger door and made space for the merman. Once he was satisfied he threw his bag onto the ground and turned to Richard, extending his arm, “Come on.”

In comparison with the caves, getting Richard into the seat was a piece of cake. He quickly strapped him in and rounded the car, hopping behind the wheel, “Let’s go home.”

Paul chuckled as he started the engine; Richard jumped a bit but quickly relaxed, turning back to his window.

“You can sleep if you want, it’s gonna be a couple of hours back to the fishery.”

“No way, I’m not missing this.”

“Okay.” Rolling his eyes, Paul slowly led them out onto the main road and then down the island back to Till’s cottage. Once in a while he looked at Richard, chuckling at the merman’s adorableness. The entire time he was stuck to the window like a little kid, his brow was leaving smudged spots on it as he looked at everything the car was passing; hills, mountains, bushes, but also car stops, tunnels and the cattle scattered on the hills around. He almost forgot to blink when they were going through one of the many towns or just passing through a village – so many people, not paying attention to him, so many buildings and colours and smells and sounds!

“Please tell me you’ll take here some day.” Richard turned to Paul before he quickly turned back to the window to watch a couple of kids run across the street.

“We’ll see. There are many ifs in front of us still.” He had no idea what is going to happen next. Is this permanent? Is Richard going to change back by the next morning? What if he has to now fully integrate among humans – without any identification or a passport he is basically stranded on this island. What he won’t be able to walk properly? What if he hurts himself? Can a broken leg grow back into a functioning tail? Paul had to shake his head to get rid of the thoughts; he needed to focus on the road, after all. The adrenaline was leaving him and he could feel his body begging for a bed, or for any flat surface to lay on, really.

…

An hour later, they finally managed to get to the fishery. Paul hastily parked next to the cottage, shutting the engine off.

“Wait here,” he said as he squeezed the merman’s thigh in comfort. He didn’t wait for an answer; Richard was still glued to the window, too busy staring at a couple of birds perched on the tree branches in front of him.

Shutting the door behind himself, Paul headed straight into the cottage – he wasn’t even inside and he could already smell that someone was cooking in the kitchen. A few more steps in and he saw Till, his back turned towards him, cooking himself a breakfast and humming together with the radio. He poured a mass of scrambled eggs onto his plate and grabbed some sausages, throwing them onto the heated pan.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Was Paul’s way of saying hello.

Till quickly turned around, his shock being replaced by a smile. “Well good morning to you too. Where have _you_ been?”

“I asked first, I needed your help.” Paul crossed his arms and leaned against the table.

“Out. Couldn’t pass the start of the festival. Met a girl and, well, had a nice night. I’ve returned not even thirty minutes ago.”

“And you couldn’t have picked your phone up?”

“I was busy, Paul. What was so damn important that you needed my help?”

“Richard got lost.”

“Got lost? He just swum away, no? He’s gonna return, don’t worry.” Till rolled his eyes, returning to his sizzling sausages.

“Oh, he returned.”

“So? What’s the problem?”

“Why don’t you join me outside, huh? I’ll need your help.” Paul sourly smiled and turned towards the exit. "Now.”

He could hear Till’s protests from the kitchen but did not care what the other man had to say. Stepping outside again, he walked towards the passenger door and once he was sure Richard was not leaning against it he pulled, opening it.

“Come on, let’s get inside.” Paul let the merman detangle himself from the seatbelt and helped him onto the ground, letting his weight rest on his shoulders again. “Small steps.”

“It’s warm.” With each step Richard took he wiggled his toes, digging them into the sand and moving small pebbles around.

“And it’s gonna get hotte-“

“What the fuck.” Both simultaneously raising their heads, they had the chance of seeing Till standing in the door way, a sausage dangling from his mouth, his eyes unblinking.

“Hi, Till.” Richard’s grin quickly faltered as his foot twisted from under him, making him stumble.

“Will you help me?” Not waiting for an answer, Paul moved behind Richard and waited for Till to help him into his arms again – like hell he is going to pick him from the ground again, his back would die.

Till swallowed his food and grabbed the merman, easily hoisting him up into Paul’s arms and letting his hands hover near by, should the merman fall.

“Holy fucking shit, Richard.” He started to laugh, looking at the merman’s new legs. “And you can’t even walk, huh?”

“No and I’m tired as hell.”

“Yeah, it was a wild night. Can you take the backpack to the living room please? And unfold the couch?” Paul tossed Richard around a bit in his arms to get a better grip around his back.

Till nodded and picked up the bag, squeezing around them and into the cottage. He turned around, crossed his arms and watched the men get over the threshold inside in mild amusement.

“Well, Paul, I didn’t know you would bring a bride here so soon. Congratulations, man!” He chuckled, laying a hand over his heart in mock.

“Huh? What?” Richard’s confused eyes jumped from Till to Paul and back.

“Eh, it’s a custom.” Till shrugged and disappeared further inside to ready the couch.

Richard’s questioning eyes landed back on Paul, waiting for an explanation.

“He’s just teasing.” Paul rolled his eyes and followed Till inside.

Till had already unfolded the couch and was in the process of throwing blankets and cushions at it, making it as comfortable as possible. He straightened one of the blankets across it and anchored it by its corners to make for a makeshift bedsheet, then he puffed the cushions and when he was satisfied enough, he turned towards the two waiting men. Well, Paul was waiting, Richard was busy with staring at everything around him; his eyes skimmed over the pots and pans hanging on small hooks in the kitchen, the furniture lining the walls, pictures, curtains, books, the TV, the older hifi tower and the numerous CDs and vinyls shoved into cupboards among the walls.

The couch’s springs squeaked when Paul unceremoniously dropped the merman onto it, chuckling at his surprised yelp, “Well, welcome home.”

“Uh, thank you.” The merman barely paid any attention to him as he was too busy examining the ceiling and the old fan hanging from it. He barely acknowledged Paul joining him on the couch.

“You guys want some breakfast?” Till asked, already filling two other plates with eggs, bacon and some buttered bread. “And tell me what the fuck has happened?”

“What do you think? He didn’t listen to me and swam to the caves. That’s what had happened.” Paul sat up from his half-laying position on the couch and gratefully accepted the plate.

“So you guys went there? And what? Why did he end up like that, huh? What did you do, Richard?”

“Me? I haven’t done anything, I wanted to know more. Then I found him inside too.” If Paul weren’t so tired and irritated, he would’ve found Richard’s stuffed cheeks quite adorable.

“I went there because I was afraid that you’d get hurt. Which you did.” Paul sighed. “Anyway, there was a pond within a cavern that lead to some underwater tunnels. We met there and not only was Richard acting all weird and stuff, he didn’t want to leave. Well, he couldn’t, the currents were apparently too strong for him and there was no other way for him out.”

“Yeah, then there was this weird crack in the ceiling and the moonlight and the storm came and the water suddenly felt all bubbly and too damn hot. The next thing I remember was laying outside, looking like this.” Richard pointed to his legs and wiggled his toes to his own amusement.

“So those books were truthful, huh. What the fuck are you going to do, huh?” Till asked, taking Paul’s empty plate.

“I don’t know. Well, more precisely, there are million things I want to do and try out but I need to rest, I’m fucking tired.” Richard yawned and raised his free hand to rub his eyes.

“Finally something I can agree on with you,” said Paul, taking off his trunks and nestling into the pillows, “C’mon, nap time.”

Richard apologetically looked up at Till, who only smiled down and took his plate. “Sounds like you both deserve it. Just sleep and if you’ll need anything, I’ll be outside.” He put the plates in the sink, took a water bottle with him and before leaving via the porch door he grabbed his phone and waved it towards Paul. “I’ll be available.”

“You can take off the raincoat already, you don’t need it here.” Paul looked up, resting on his side, his head supported by his elbow.

“Uh sure.” He shred it onto the ground and wiggled down, laying face to face with Paul. “This is kinda new.”

“Get used to it.” Paul smiled and leaned in, gently kissing Richard’s brow and then planting another soft kiss on his lips. “Now sleep, we can talk later.”

“Thank you,” Richard whispered and closed his eyes.

Before Paul completely fell asleep he felt a hand sneaking to his own, intertwining their fingers together. If his own eyes were not shutting on their own he would kiss every inch of Richard’s skin; the nights spent on the abandoned beaches had nothing on this. Being together cocooned under one blanket inside the cottage felt so much different, so much more real. So much more _intimate_.

He brought their intertwined palms to his lips and kissed Richard’s knuckles, letting the merman’s deep regular breathing lull him to sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

A cacophony of sounds brought Paul back from his sleep. He twitched and opened his eyes to see what was going on; the merman was not next to him anymore and not even anywhere on the couch, but appeared to move over to one of the windows, leaning against the windowsill and peaking outside. At least he had been - just as Paul managed to focus his sleepy eyes, the rest of the CDs that were resting on the sill fell out of Richard’s hands and onto the floor.

“Well, good… afternoon to you too,” Paul yawned, checking the clock on the wall, “What are you doing over there?”

“I wanted to go outside, only I can’t. So this is all I can do, barely.” He smiled, staggering a couple of steps and then unceremoniously falling onto the couch.

“It’s difficult to walk. Legs are weird.” Richard stretched them above him and then gently laid them on top of Paul’s. His gaze then slowly travelled to the smaller man’s, waiting for his answer.

The man in question wordlessly stared down, idly playing with the hem of a blanket and only after a couple of thoughtful moments he laughed, the sound having tiny bits of nervousness in its tone. Now that they were both rested and away from danger, Paul found it twice as surreal than before and the more Richard paraded his new body in front of him, the more he started to realize that this all was happening and he is not laying somewhere passed out dreaming everything up after all.

“So,” he sighed, “Are you happy now?” He tried to make his smile more sincere and less sour, considering the merman was still excited over his new appendages. The smile widened a bit when he squeezed one of the thighs, seeing it twitch; he quickly realized the merman is going to be quite ticklish. And sensitive.

“I don’t know if happy is the right word but I’m certainly not letting this opportunity go. Just seeing what I had the chance to see made me excited. None of my people from the school have ever been this far from the sea.”

“We’re not really that far.” Paul nodded towards the windows; the merman had to see it for himself a moment ago, the cottage was at most a hundred meters away from the pier and the beach.

“Still the furthest I’ve ever been.” The merman moved closer, clumsily straddling Paul, “Are you angry with me?” He nudged him with his nose, leaving a peck on one of Paul’s laugh lines.

“Of course I am. Or I was, at least. I feel like no matter what I tell you, you ignore me and I can’t live like that, Richard. Not again.”

“I’ve told you I listen to you, I just-“ Richard sighed and slowly balanced himself on his calves,”-I haven’t fell such a strong desire and pull to go somewhere in a long time. Especially, after all the research you’ve done.”

“Don’t throw it on me.”

“Oh I will, it’s partially your fault too.” Richard crossed his arms and smirked down at Paul’s puffy cheeks and avoiding gaze. “Not that I’m complaining, I should actually thank you.”

“I’m still angry at you.” Paul mimicked Richard’s crossed arms and tried to look as much irritated as possible, which in his current state and with his current view was a bit difficult. Richard was towering above him, his physique highlighted by the sun shining through the windows and looking absolutely delicious.

“Then be angry at me, c’mon be the angriest you can be.” Richard lowered down and nudged Paul’s nose with his again, biting his bottom lip to unsuccessfully stop his smirk.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, I don’t want to throw up now.” Even before their lips touched, Till let the porch door slam behind him, trying to avert his eyes from the couple on the couch and hide his grin at the same time.

“Oh hey Till.” Paul quickly scrambled up and away from Richard’s embrace to the other side of the couch, pretending nothing had happened. Richard sniggered at that and lazily turned onto his side, letting his body stretch over the entire surface.

“I take it all is good now? You’re not going to kill each other?” Till laughed, sitting down onto one of the arm rests of the couch.

“More like I’m just trying to stop Richard from killing himself accidentally.” Paul glanced over at the merman, seeing that the smirk wouldn’t leave his face. “I think I’ve got a lot of new things to teach him now.”

“Hmm,” Till hummed, slowly looking over the merman’s body, “well, you can start with modesty. I personally don’t care about him flaunting his new ware around but other people might.” Till’s smile intensified once he saw how quickly could Paul’s ears turn red. The smaller man immediately looked over; the merman was still resting on his side, letting his new dick happily dangle in the open for both men to see.

“Uh, yeah. You’ve heard Till. We’ll have to get you some clothes.” Paul looked up at the bigger man, “can you lend him some stuff? I think mine would be a bit too tight.”

“Of course, I’ll bring them over.” Till ruffled Paul’s bird nest, laughing at his protests as he exited the room.

“He’s right, you know. We’ll have to dress you up. And then probably go and get you some new clothes.”

“Do I have to wear them here though? I already felt weird in the rain coat and this,” he grabbed his flaccid penis and balls, slightly tugging at them, “is even weirder. I’m not used to having it outside, unprotected.”

“That’s why you need clothes.”

“That’s dumb.”

“You’re dumb.” Paul laughed, slapping Richard’s hand away from his genitals. The last thing he needed now was for Richard to get himself accidentally hard.

…

“Yeah, okay, they’re a bit loose but they will have to do.” Paul stepped back, trying to hold his laughter. Richard looked like he walked straight out of a 90s hip hop music video. Not that Till was that taller than him, but the man was build like a tank, much more so than the merman. Richard kept tugging at the hems and rubbing his legs against each other; they’ve stuffed him into a large black t-shirt and a pair of trunks that ended just above his knees. Although the biggest protest coming from him was because of the briefs. They had to assure him multiple times that it’s not going to suffocate him _down there_ and neither it’s gonna squeeze the life out of him.

Richard was leaning against the armrest, his hands gripping it while he had his legs stretched in front of him, his soles trying to find their balance. He was eager to stand on his own and that’s why he refused the other men’s help; he wanted to do it on his own and be caught only if he falls. It felt unusual for him to be able to move so little with his lower body; he was used to the flexibility of his tail that allowed him to twist and turn at the oddest angles and now he just had these two sticks with couple of joints in-between. Moving his toes, he fixed both his feet on the ground and slowly pushed himself off the armrest, trying to find his balance.

“Good, put your whole body into it, slowly.” Till nodded, slightly raising his arms to catch the other man.

“Don’t you want to start with a cane or a crutch? It’ll be easier.”

“I’m fine, Paul. Now let me focus.” His legs kept shaking as his arms flew from his sides to balance him out as the merman slowly left the arm rest, standing on his own and focusing very hard on moving his feet forward.

“That’s it. Baby steps,” Paul whispered, amazed by the merman’s diligence.

Richard pushed his right foot forward, letting it slip a few centimetres across the floor and then straightened again, still not falling over. He brought his other leg under him too and raised his head in joy; he just managed to make his first step without any guidance. His celebration did not stay long enough though, he tried to make a proper step by raising his right foot again and the moment it left the floor he swayed and toppled over, thankfully falling into Till’s prepared arms.

“Whoa, careful. You’ve to really take it easy.” Till chuckled, helping him back on his feet.

Paul nudged the bigger man out of the way and wiggled himself under Richard’s right arm, letting him snake it around his middle, “let me help, okay?”

“Yeah, fine.”

Paul wound his own arm around Richard’s waist and squeezed it in reassurance and turned around, giving the merman space to practice his walking. With his help, everything went much easier and quicker and soon enough, Richard was able to walk across the room quite evenly with Paul’s assistance. Small shuffles slowly turned into tiny steps. Knees started to bend properly and right after, Richard’s soles left the ground in a proper way, only occasionally twisting from under him, making him lean into Paul. Till eventually excused himself and returned outside to finish his work in the garden, leaving the two men in the cottage alone. The sheer focus that Richard emitted brought a smile to Paul’s lips - as much as he was angry in the beginning, he started to slowly realize how important this was for the merman and how great it actually was to be with him finally somewhere else than on abandoned beaches and empty piers. He smiled even more as he heard Richard’s quiet cursing every time his ankles twisted the wrong way or when he leaned too much on one side, losing his balance.

It took them most of the afternoon as Richard refused to take any breaks and continued to shuffle from one end of the cottage to the other, walking with Paul in circles and quite progressing with his steps. He just made his way towards one end of the living room, when his hold on Paul’s arm tensed.

“Uh, Paul?”

“Yeah, do you need something?”

“I think I need to use the bathroom.”

“Ah. Do you need any-“

“Jesus, I don’t need any help – just show me how things work there. Please.”

“Uh, sure.” Thank god that Till was still outside, if he saw this exchange and their burning faces hey wouldn’t ever let it go. Paul helped him to the small bathroom and swiftly explained the basics, shutting the door behind himself, happy that the merman doesn’t need any help.

Returning back to the kitchen/living room area, Paul took out some beers and looked out of the window; the sun was slowly on its way to start setting behind the horizon, relieving the land of its heat. Looking down, Paul had the chance to see Till standing on the pier, holding a football in his hands and looking outward. After a moment he threw the ball onto the sea, the ball momentarily disappearing in the golden waves of the water and then bouncing a few metres even further away from the pier. It looked strange until the ball was propelled out of the water in the hands of the other merman – and when he was in mid air, he threw the ball back at Till and then got swallowed by the water once again. Paul would continue to watch them till the sound of running water, some rummaging and then the slow opening of a door made him turn back towards the bathroom.

Richard was leaning against the doorframe, smiling and slowly moving one of his legs forward. Paul wordlessly returned and grabbed his middle, helping him back to the living room.

“Okay, I think I found the first thing I don’t like on myself now.” Paul had to laugh at Richard’s sheepish confession, he knew this will gonna take some time for the merman to get used to.

“Eh, it could be worse,” he answered, grabbing the bottles of beer from the kitchen counter, “let’s go outside, Doom’s here.”

“He is? Yeah, let’s go.”

They made their way onto the porch and after some persuasion, Richard put on Paul’s old flip flops and let himself be lead down the path to the beach. Surprisingly, even though the terrain was much more uneven, Richard had less difficulty with walking on the soft sand and gravel running down the hill. He slowly straightened himself up and by the time they were on the sea level, approaching the pier, Richard was walking only with his hands firmly holding Paul’s bicep as a support. His feet twisted once or twice but the overall progress he made in those couple of hours was immense. As the wood started to creak under them, Till grabbed the ball and turned around, smiling at the duo.

“Well look at you, Should I expect a morning jog tomorrow morning with you?” Till laughed, tossing the ball in the air and subsequently catching it. “You wanna join us?”

The men stopped at the end of the pier next to Till and watched him as he arched his back and threw the ball with all his might as far as possible. It landed on the water and in a matter of seconds, the other merman was jumping out, ready to throw it back.

“Wait what the fu-“ was heard before he splashed down under water, bringing the ball with him.

He quickly swam closer, dragging the ball with him and narrowing his eyes with every meter he was closer to the group.

“Richard? Holy shit what’s happened?” His eyes were huge as he threw the ball onto the pier, stroked his curls out of his face and hoisted himself up, in front of his friend.

“Yeah, surprise, surprise. I went to the caves.”

“You did? And this is what has happened?” Doom sat closer and immediately grabbed Richard by his legs, squeezing both of his shins, running his fingers up as far as the trunks would let him and then back down, individually tracing each toe.

“Yeah, it was a bit of a process, but hey, I survived. And I finally know what the elders have been keeping from us.”

“They got quite angry when you hadn’t returned. Probably expected that you would hide with us, for your own good. Should I tell them about this?” He grabbed Richard’s skin and tugged at it, making him squirm.

“Hey, be careful, I’m glad I’m even standing.” He wiggled his leg away, leaning into Paul, “and I don’t want them to know. Screw them.”

“I think they keep you away for a reason, without my help he would die in there as the others did too. Unless you have outside help, you’re not getting out.” Paul nudged Richard’s side, smiling at Richard’s averting eyes. He moved closer to the edge and let Richard sit down next to the merman and dip his feet in the water.

“Fuck, this is weird,” Richard said as he started to swing his legs back and forth, “It’s so alien yet so right.”

“What are you going to do?” Doom shuffled next to him, dipping his tail into the water; even though he was larger even when Richard had a tail, now he looked absolutely massive next to him. Richard was no small man now and yet, next to the merman, he looked like a little boy.

“I’d like to explore as much as I can. Who knows how long it will last. Or if it’s permanent then I have to start learning a lot of stuff.”

“And you’re okay with it all?”

A Pause.

“Yeah,” Richard looked up at Paul, brightly smiling at him, “Yeah I am.”

The merman gave Richard a cryptic look; his eyes kept jumping from one leg to the other, to Richard’s face, back to the legs and onto the sea. There were definitely new thoughts and opinions about his friend’s new state but by the stoic look and his sealed lips, it didn’t look like he is going to share them anytime.

“Well,” Doom sighed and patted his back, letting his hand slide down to his thigh to squeeze the muscle, “As long, as you’re happy and safe.”


	7. Chapter 7

Paul knew the way to the nearest village by heart now. The road may have been uneven and full of potholes yet it still was a treat to drive on for the man. He liked how it snaked around the coast and wiggled among the broken rocks and occasionally bisected a path made by the wild goats living all around them. Richard, unsurprisingly, had been glued to the window the entire time. He needed to see and catch every single detail that they had passed during their trip, be it the goats, the rocks or other cars going from the opposite direction.

After they had stayed at the pier the entire evening, both men crashed on the sofa as Paul’s single bed upstairs was too small for both of them and said man was too scared to leave the merman alone in the living room. What if Richard decided to go back to the beach? Paul wouldn’t be surprised if he forgot that he can’t swim or breathe underwater now. Or what if he decided to explore the cottage’s surrounding? Outside of the little paths made by Till the ground was quite hostile towards the merman’s new legs.

Once they made the couch a bit more comfortable for both men to sleep in and Paul lead Richard trough all the necessary evening rituals in the bathroom, the merman made himself comfortable in the middle of the couch. Paul only needed to give the merman a long hard stare to move him one one side; he then immediately grabbed the blanket and covered the both of them, spooning his lover. Unfortunately, it took him some persuasion to keep the merman under the blanket; he kept kicking it off and throwing it over at Paul who had to repeatedly tuck him back in, explaining that if he won’t cover himself he ends up with a cold or at least a sore throat. That night, Paul had discovered, that Richard was quite the hugger during his sleep. He woke up several times with the merman entangled either around one of his limbs or just straight up laying on him, his hug almost suffocating him. Thankfully, a well-placed pillow for the merman to hug had solved the problem and let the other man sleep.

Paul had to work that morning so he let Richard stay on the porch and gave him a load of papers for practising his handwriting to keep him busy while he had to work in the nearby sheds. Not that he was afraid of letting Richard bore himself to death but letting him read and write was quite an effective way keeping him from any danger or unwanted accidents. And as soon as Till let him go, he grabbed the merman, his wallet and the car keys and dragged him into the pickup, heading towards the village.

“First, we’re gonna get you some proper clothes.” Paul raised his voice over the radio, driving off the main road. “Then I can show you around and take you wherever you want, we’ve got the time.”

He didn’t need an answer; Richard’s blissful smile was giving away quite clearly the merman’s excitement over the oncoming day. Paul was quite excited too, he finally wanted to show the merman all the places and things he couldn’t bring to him and had already made a mental list of things he must experience, be it today or some other day here on the island. He parked the car near the closest store that didn’t sell just tourist clothes and turned off the engine, unfastening his seatbelt and looking at the merman.

“You ready?”

“I- Yeah, let’s go.” Richard swallowed, his eyes frantically skipping from one person to another walking outside.

“You sure?”

“Of course.” Richard smiled, yet his wide eyes skipping across the people outside told Paul that it was just a mask to cover his nervousness. “I’m just not used to other people, you know that my entire life I’ve been taught to avoid them.”

Paul nodded in acknowledgment and exited the car, rounding it and opening the passenger door so that the merman could easily step out.

“Just grab my hand and hold on.” Paul intertwined their fingers letting Richard to find his footing and straighten up. He was sure that if the merman tried, he would’ve been able to walk on his own already but Paul knew that he will need his hand more for mental support rather than the physical one. So he held on, ignoring any possible stares. He wouldn’t care about the stares but the truth was, that till that day, if he ever had been with the merman, they were either alone or surrounded by their friends. This was new to him too, to be seen by strangers with his hand linked to another man. Thankfully, after looking around he discovered that no one cared, it was just his paranoid mind making things up.

As soon as they’ve entered the store, Paul dragged the amazed merman into one of the aisles, immediately picking some plain shirts for him and showing them to him. “Will you wear these?”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes.”

“Then I will,” the merman said, wiggling his eyebrows at the other man.

“Do you know what exactly would you like to wear? They have a lot of things here.”

“I don’t know? I liked how the guys were dressed in the last movie we watched, so maybe something like what they wore?”

Paul let out a burst of laugher, immediately feeling sorry for Richard’s confused, almost hurt expression. “You’re not dressing up as a cowboy. Especially if you don’t want any unwanted attention.”

“Ah, okay.” Richard blushed, looking at the ground. “Then maybe something similar to your style? That’s a safe bet, no?”

“It is.” Paul squeezed Richard’s hand and gave him an encouraging smile. “Maybe I’ll buy you a Stetson some day.”

Paul then proceeded to find the best size for the merman and started grabbing shirts, tank tops and hoodies, slowly piling them into the merman’s other hand. Then they moved towards another aisle and stopped before the laid out sweatpants. He grabbed a pair, then some jean shorts and cargo pants, letting the merman decide what colour he wanted. Richard himself was a bit overwhelmed by all the colours and their variations, so he just decided mainly on black clothes with a few exceptions. Then came the underwear and socks section and (of course) the first objections as well. Richard looked like he was quite wary of those pieces of clothing, forcing Paul to take the bare minimum. Lastly, before they went to the checkout, they picked up a pair of converse shoes and some sandals, quickly trying them on to figure the right size.

Paul was about to dump all the clothes in front of the cashier when Richard grabbed his bicep and forcefully tugged him to his side, twisting him around.

“What’s going on?”

“Paul, look over there.” He nodded towards a rack with some button-up shirts on sale. “I like those, can you get me some?”

Paul followed the merman’s gaze and had to internally cringe. Those shirts were hideous. Plastered with ornaments all over, colours mixed and clashing, creating hypnotizing patterns. “God, why? They’re horrible.”

He could barely finish his sentence before Richard detached himself from his arm and confidently walked (shuffled) to the rack, taking one of the hangers out and looking at the shirt. Paul could see why they were on sale, no normal person would want to buy that. Except for Richard, of course. He walked over and looked at the merman; he was turning the shirt around, tracing his fingers across the patterns, his smile reminding him of an excited kid.

“Pretty please, Paul. At least this one.” Oh yeah, now he sounded like his kids when they wanted a new toy.

“Well, since you managed to walk over here completely on your own I should make an exception,” he sighed as Richard’s smile brightened even more, “But only this one okay?”

“Thank you.” The merman leaned in and gave him a quick peck on his cheek. “Now we can go.”

Richard thoroughly watched the exchange between the cashier and Paul, the way the girl stuffed all their newly purchased clothes into bags and handed them over, politely smiling at him. He returned the smile, overjoyed to have an interaction with a complete stranger. He unconsciously kept staring at her till Paul took half of the bags and linked their hands back together, leading them outside.

“I don’t know about you, but I’d like to stop for a late lunch somewhere.” Paul said as he threw some of the bags into the pickup.

“I’d love that. Lead the way.”

“Yeah okay, but first change into some of the new clothes, you look like a hobo.”

Richard’s brows raised in surprise. “I don’t know how a hobo looks like, but it’s probably bad.” He then shrugged and grabbed the hem of his shirt to take it off. He threw it into the car, his hands automatically going for the pants.

“Stop!” Paul laughed, ushering him into the car. “Do it inside, otherwise people will stare.”

“What’s wrong with that? I don’t mind being naked.”

“I know, but some people might. Here, take these shorts and a tank top and put them on. I’m gonna take out the sandals and then we can go.” Paul pushed the merman back into his seat and closed the door. He rounded the car, picked up the rest of the bags and after finding the sandals he threw the bags into the trunk and locked it.

Richard just managed to wiggle into his shorts and opened the door, turning in his seat and waiting for Paul.

“Here you go.” Paul helped him to put on the shoes and let him step out of the car again. He locked it, pocketed the keys and turned around, grabbing Richard’s hand. “Let’s go.”

Walking through the village, Paul lead the merman through every street, every passage, letting him ogle buildings and touch flowers, occasionally stopping at a shop or two, giving Richard the space and time to look at all kinds of trinkets and knickknacks. They stopped at one of the souvenir shops and Richard immediately walked over to the stall with necklaces and bracelets.

“Oh look.” He rummaged through it, picking some of the necklaces up. “They look like mine.”

“Yeah, but yours is prettier, these are cheap and meant for the tourists.” Paul smiled watching the merman idly play with his own necklace. The way he kept running his fingertips across the seashells made Paul question the merman’s sincerity about his excitement over being on land. He hoped that Richard’s initial nervousness won’t take over now, he wouldn’t know what to do with a merman having a panic attack in the middle of some street. Thankfully, the merman’s gentle smile showed him that his lover was thinking more about the accessories in question rather than about his “old” life.

And boy, was he glad that he was wearing sunglasses; Richard looked sinfully good in the clothes that finally fit him, the tank top was just tight enough to accentuate his muscles and bring out his strong shoulders and while his legs were completely smooth, they were still very nice to look at too; his shins were defined and his butt nicely rounded the fabric of the shorts.

“C’mon, I don’t want to starve.” Not being bale to resist, he gently smacked the merman across his ass, grinning at the alarmed ‘ _hey!’_ he got as an answer.

…

They’ve ended up in a small restaurant at the village’s square; Paul wanted to take him to one of the bars on the beach but Richard persisted on staying within the village, right in the shadow of the local church. They sat next to each other against the restaurant’s wall so that Richard could have a good view of everything that was happening in the tiny square as he still could not properly read the menu. He adoringly watched a family walk by, the kids excited from the day’s play at the beach and the parents tired, but happy nonetheless; then he turned towards the other customers of the restaurant, quickly scanning their faces and absolutely enjoying his presence among them.

“Is there any particular thing you’d like to try out?” Paul woke him up from his trance and moved the menu between them.

“Uh, probably no seafood.” Richard smiled at Paul’s snigger. “What about pizzas? I loved the one you brought to me in the past.”

“Yeah they have them, we can order those.” Paul squeezed his hand and started reading the list of pizzas the restaurant provided.

Five minutes later they were brought a jug of water and made their order, together with a small carafe of white wine. Paul decided to ask for one pepperoni and one chicken and spinach pizza, knowing that the merman would be able to devour both of them in a matter of a few minutes. He still found it cute how Richard went a little bit stiff when the waitress came to their table, though he felt how much Richard wanted to talk to her as he kept repeatedly licking his lips, ready to say at least something. When the waitress left, he looked back at him, pouring them a glass of the ice-cold water.

“Did you wanted to order it yourself?”

“I think I’d mess it up. Maybe next time, yeah?” Richard smiled, bringing the water to his lips. “This is incredible, is it like this in every city? You just sit down and they’ll bring you whatever you want?”

“As long as it’s on the menu, yeah.”

“Man, I’m gonna get spoiled pretty fast.”

“As if you already weren’t, compared to the rest of your people.”

“Hey!” Richard nudged him. “It’s your fault too, y’know.”

Paul only smiled back at him, closing his eyes and letting the merman to briefly kiss him. While they were too busy with staring into each other’s eyes, the waitress brought their wine and set the glasses in front of them, pouring the liquid out of the carafe. Richard’s eyes shifted over to her, studying her face, her hair, her uniform, and the gentle smile she sported. Once she discovered his staring she met his eyes and quickly moved her gaze away, slightly blushing.

“Thank you, darling.” Richard told her in English, his hand moving towards the glass.

She only nodded in acknowledgement, bowed her head and disappeared inside the building. Paul took his own glass into his hand and twirled the liquid around, looking inside it and trying to appear nonchalant. Inside, he was hiding the incredibly strong feeling of being proud; he had doubts about the merman, Richard could’ve ended up mute but hearing the charismatic charm of his in his tone, Paul knew that soon enough he will have enough trouble with the merman talking _too_ much.

“Darling, huh? So you’re gonna flirt with everyone you meet?” He looked to the side, narrowing his eyes and trying to cover his smirk as he brought his glass towards the other man, clinking it slightly.

“I just felt like it, it was not rude, was it?” Richard looked genuinely alarmed.

“Nah, it wasn’t. She might just think you’re trying to flirt with her, since you’ve been ogling her from the start.” Paul laughed and then covered Richard’s hand with his own on the bench between them. “Don’t worry, it was actually a really nice gesture.”

They both drank their wines and chatted, Paul showing him and explaining everything that the merman pointed his finger at, be it the street ice-cream vendor, the well in the middle of the square or the strings attached from one lamppost to another, with colourful triangles hanging down from them. And not even fifteen minutes later, their food arrived, the waitress quickly putting their plates down and then immediately walking away.

“Poor girl, now she’s all embarrassed and can’t look us in the eyes. You’ve got no idea how strong that charm of yours is-“ Paul turned back to his lover, only to find him with his mouth absolutely stuffed, the chicken falling from the bit that was hanging from his mouth. Not for long though, as the merman hissed and had to chew the too hot food before putting the rest of the pizza triangle down.

“Is hot!” He managed to say as he still tried to cool the bite in his mouth.

“What else did you expect?” Paul laughed, gingerly picking his pizza up and blowing on it. “It’s fresh out of the oven.”

“Yeah, but I’m hungry.” Richard finally swallowed his piece and took one from Paul’s plate. “And it’s fucking delicious.”

…

Once finished they paid for their food and left the waitress a nice tip, Richard dragged Paul over to the church, looking at the church’s bulletin board in front of it. At first, the merman was attracted by the statues above the huge wooden door but what caught his interest next was the possibility of going inside and even up into the tower to look around across the village. Paul agreed to pay the small fee and both of them walked inside, loving how cold the air within the chapel was. The smaller man’s attention was caught by the candles right by the entrance but the merman walked forward, completely on his own. He slowly made his way down the isle, letting his fingertips slip across the wooden pews and their arm rests. He had his head twisted to the ceiling, marvelling how intricate the pillars were and slowly turning around, devouring every single painting, statue and cross that the little church had. Once Paul raised his head he gently smiled, watching Richard strut around completely on his own. He didn’t like how cheesy it felt, but the serenity and the fact that it was only him and Richard in the church made him love the merman even more.

He slowly made his way across the room towards Richard who turned around and patiently waited for him, with a persistent shy smile on his face. Once he was close enough, Paul looked back to make sure they were alone and then snaked his arms around Richard’s waist and pulled him closer, till there was barely any space left between them and he could feel his breath on his face.

“Do you like it here?” Paul whispered, mesmerized by Richard’s eyelashes.

“It’s so weird in here. I’ve heard of churches, but I’ve never thought it’d look like this in here.”

“Mmm,” Paul hummed and got closer, unable to resist a couple of stolen kisses, “You should see the inside of some cathedrals, they’re hundred times bigger than this.”

“That’s insane.” The merman looked up, trying to imagine the ceiling higher and the walls taller than in there. He was about to return some of the kisses back when they heard a door creaking and they both instinctively separated, standing a metre apart. A bunch of tourist shuffled out of a side door that lead into the tower; they gently closed the door behind themselves and nodded towards the two men, silently greeting them. Both Paul and Richard nodded back, trying to hold their laughter at their abrupt separation.

“Do you want to go up? See the village and the sea at the same time?”

“That sounds tempting. Lead the way.”

Walking up the stairs was still quite a challenge for the merman, especially when the stairs were old, made of stone and seemed to twist forever up. Paul walked behind him and had his hands ready if the merman lost his his balance and would fall down. Fortunately, he managed to get all the way up without any accident and once Paul caught up, Richard opened the door and stepped outside onto the balcony that twisted around the tower and gave them a view in every possible direction.

Paul watched how Richard walked over to the side which overlooked a part of the village and then the sea that was once again bathed in shades of gold from the setting sun. The merman gripped the metal railing between the heavy sandstones and looked around, inhaling the salty air coming from the shore. His excitement was short-lived though, as he looked down from the tower his heart skipped the beat, his hands started to tremble and his entire body immediately got dowsed in cold sweat.

“Oh fuck.”

“What’s going on?” Paul got closer to him and wrapped one of his arms around Richard’s waist.

“We’re so high up,” Richard whispered.

“Oh.” Paul slowly moved backwards with the merman until his back hit the wall of the tower and let Richard slide against it on the ground. “Just breathe. Don’t worry, nothing’s gonna happen to you.” He kneeled in front of him and grabbed Richard’s face, lifting it up.

“That’s so fucking scary.” Paul saw that Richard got pale pretty fast and only then he realized that this was the highest point Richard have ever been to, even though the tower was not that high and barely went over the rooftops of the other buildings.

“Hey, hey, look at me. We can go back down alright, if it’s too much, we can find something else for you.”

“No, it’s okay.” Richard closed his eyes for a moment, calming his breath. “The view is amazing, just, just hold me please. And stay away from the edge.”

“Sure, c’mon then.” Paul offered him his hand and when Richard’s breathing calmed down, he grabbed it and hoisted himself up, straight into Paul’s chest. They slowly moved around the tower, stopping every metre or so and looking over at the view in front of them. Richard got the chance to see the entire village, the road that lead back home, the hills and mountains of the inland and then the sea shore, with a long beach crawling next to it, merging the village’s streets into the soft sand. They could see many people still sitting in the sand with hundreds of lanterns surrounding them; some were small and just hung among the decorative triangles on the ropes, some held children on their sticks and some were bigger, ready to be released into the air.

“Do you want to go there? We still have time.” Paul hugged the merman from behind and rested his head on his shoulder.

“I’d love to, I want to see the lanterns.”

“Okay.”

It didn’t take them long to get down and out of the church; as much as the view was nice, Richard was glad that he did not have to suffer up there anymore. While Paul was gingerly closing the main door, Richard once again wandered away, this time heading across the square to the ice-cream vendor, leaving the smaller man behind. Paul huffed a laugh when he saw the merman leaning over the refrigerator, eyeing all the flavours they had on display; he deserved a treat after the vertigo he had so Paul jogged after him, picking up a slight chatter between Richard and the vendor.

Arriving to the stand he greeted the man and quickly discovered that Richard was talking to him in the local language and that he was not able to understand him. At all. Whatever they were talking about, they were laughing about it, joking between each other and Paul hated that he couldn’t understand them. He also hated how unbelievably hot Richard sounded; he knew his German and knew he could speak in English too, but hearing him now speak in another foreign language just sent a shiver down his body with every uttered word. He rolled his Rs, he pronounced vowels Paul had no idea that existed and spoke so fluently and colourfully he almost managed to hypnotise the smaller man.

“Hey, baby. Will you get me some please?” Richard switched back to German, snaking his arm around Paul’s shoulders.

“Yeah, yeah, sure. Which one do you want?” Paul quickly looked down and fished out his wallet, trying to hide his blush.

“Apparently the stracciatella one is great. And if you let him add the chocolate one on top I’ll love you even more.”

“Okay.” Paul laughed and nudged him towards the ice-creams to pick the flavours. “And grab something for me too, will you?”

He paid for the two giant heaps of ice-cream and let Richard thank the man and say their goodbyes as they slowly started to walk towards the sea.

“I’ve never realized that you can speak their language too, y’know,” Paul said as he licked around the cone.

“Well, that was the first one I’ve been taught; it’d be useless to live here and not to understand a word, huh.” Richard smiled around his treat, brushing his free hand against Paul’s “Thank you, by the way.” He leaned down and kissed the corner of his mouth.

Paul swatted him away; as much as he liked the attention, he did not need to have half of his face covered in chocolate ice-cream. They slowly went down the streets, meeting other couples and families that were either returning home from the beach or going down there just as them. By the time they arrived to the path lining the beach and dividing it from the bars and restaurants, the sun had already disappeared behind the horizon, only leaving the western sky coloured in the shades of purple and pink. They sat on the stone wall next to the path and ate the rest of their treats, looking over the water and watching people stroll by.

“Wait, doesn’t Ollie live here?” Richard asked as he finished his cone.

“Yeah, he does. He has a shop not far from here, though he is back in Germany right now. Family business apparently.”

“Aw, and here I was thinking we could surprise him.”

“Yeah, maybe next time.” Paul smiled, looking behind the merman at the various souvenir shops that were still opened. “Stay here.” He patted Richard’s shoulder and jogged off to the nearest one, disappearing inside.

He returned five minutes later, holding a plastic bag and twirling a lighter between his fingers.

“Since we’re here, we could join the others, no?” He opened the bag and took out what at first looked like a giant paper bag only to stretch it out into a sky lantern. “They should start releasing them any minute now, since the sun has finally set.”

And truly, there were kids running with small lanterns on sticks, the ones hanging across the streets were lit on and dozens of other people slowly started to prepare their own sky lanterns.

“Why do people do this? I know I’ve seen them every year everywhere around the island but I didn’t know why they were there.”

“To be honest I don’t know the true reason either, Till probably does though. I just like the effect. And you will like it too.” He stretched the wires under it and put the candle in the middle. “Now we just gotta wait for the church bell.”

Paul idly played with the lighter while Richard kept turning the lantern in his hands trying to discover how it works and when he started to peek inside Paul laughed and pushed his face away from the construction.

“The air above the flame gets thinner than the one outside the balloon and then the lantern starts rising. You’ll see soon enough.”

“Oh, okay.” Richard lowered the lantern and looked around. “Let’s go to the beach, I want to feel the sand again.”

They found some free space near the stone wall yet still far enough for Richard to take his sandals off and stroll towards the wet sand. Soon, Paul joined him and rested his head against his shoulder, watching the other people around them.

“It’s still unbelievable for me to be here, so free and unrestrained,” Richard whispered.

“And it’s only the first day, baby,” Paul answered, leaning towards Richard’s face. The merman didn’t need any more signals, he turned his head and met Paul halfway, savouring the slow and sensual kiss. They continued to overlap their lips, enjoying each other’s presence, the soothing background sounds of the sea and the crowds chatting around them. Slowly, Paul could feel Richard’s tongue brushing against his lips asking for an entrance. He had to laugh and back away, nudging the impatient merman with his nose.

“Not here, we can’t.” He smiled even more at Richard’s pout. Then his head raised in alarm; the bells started to ring and with that, every person around them began lighting their lanterns. The men stepped away from each other and Paul began to instruct Richard what to do. First, he crouched down and set their own firelighter on fire, then he helped Richard holding the paper till the lantern started to slowly rise on its own. Paul released it and let the merman to deal with it; Richard was mesmerized by the orange light and balloon that wanted to escape from his hands, he kept turning it around and with a last look at Paul he let it go, the lantern slowly rising up into the sky.

Looking around, the man saw these lanterns everywhere around them, gently rising up and moving above the sea and into the darkness around them, creating new star constellations just for the people under them. Richard was busy with counting every single lantern while Paul just stared at him, completely in love with the merman drenched in the orange light next to him.

“I love you.”

The simple three words brought the merman’s attention back to him as Paul kept staring at him, his eyes wide and heart purely open only for the merman.

“Oh Paul.” Richard let his fingers gently wrap around Paul’s neck, his thumbs stroking against his jaw. “You have no idea how much I love you.” He dove down and kissed him, resuming in their previous kissing, only now being surrounded by countless flying lanterns.

The overwhelming feeling completely distracted Paul from the outside world and all he managed to do was to push the merman closer, snake his arms around his waist and get drunk on his kisses. He grunted and moaned into the kisses, clawing at Richard’s sides as the merman repeatedly licked inside his mouth, coaxing his own tongue out and back in.

Only when Paul felt the cold air tickling him under his shirt he moved back, licked his reddened lips and dazedly looked at his partner. “I think we should get back home, huh?”

“Please,” Richard whined, hiding his face in Paul’s neck, “As fast as we can.”

“Oh.” Paul swallowed. He definitely _felt_ why the merman agreed so eagerly - his own dick twitched in interest too. “Yeah. Yeah let’s go.”

Grabbing Richard by his hand he tugged him across the beach, straight towards their parked car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I totally forgot to link my tumblr here lol  
> Also, I've created an ig account, where I'll have more of my 'art' ^^"  
> [Tumblr](https://naraism.tumblr.com/)  
> [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/naraism.a/)
> 
> \+ I'm going to change the uploading schedule a bit - I'm running out of pre-written chapters and I don't want to run out and then stop uploading for a while. So now the updates will come every other friday (for now) :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't had the chance yet, go and read [Arrestzelle's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arrestzelle/pseuds/Arrestzelle) fic [A Creature Unlike His Kind](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26658931?view_adult=true) ♡ It's a wonderful smut based on this mermaid AU and she deserves all the kudos&comments she can get for it ♡

It’s said that the trip back home always passes quicker than the way to the destination. In this case, Paul was sure it took them twice as long; the merman wanted to jump at him the entire way to the pickup and then proceeded to complain the entire way back to the fishery and on top of that, Paul’s own _excitement_ didn’t help him either. He tried to pay attention to the road and get his mind off the other man but Richard’s fidgeting always brought him back, his mind slowly becoming irritated by Richard’s nonstop movement.

Once they finally parked in front of the cottage, Richard all but jumped out, dragging the bags with his new clothes inside and disappearing in a blink of an eye.

“Horny motherfucker.” Paul laughed to himself as he killed the engine and exited the car, locking it in the process.

He found Richard in the living room in a complete darkness; the bags were thrown onto the floor and the merman was in the process of dragging his tank top over his head. Once he won the battle with the piece of clothing he threw it on the ground, his fingers immediately grabbing the button of his jean shorts.

“Fuck,” the merman hissed, “I knew why I hate the goddamn underwear, it’s starting to fucking hurt.”

“Oh hush you prima donna.” Paul came closer, shooing away Richard’s fingers. “Let me help you.”

Paul’s deft fingers made a quick work of the button and the zipper; he pushed the fly down and hooked his hands in the hem of Richard’s underwear and slid it down, allowing the merman to kick it away. Richard had meanwhile relocated his head to the crook of Paul’s shoulder and started licking the sweaty skin on his collar bones.

Looking down, Paul had to bite his bottom lip at the view. Even though there was no artificial light, the moonlight from the outside beautifully contoured the merman’s body, accentuating his chest and arms, his belly and thighs and shedding just enough light at his oh, so gorgeous cock. Paul’s fingers slid down Richard’s arms, leaving a trail of goosebumps behind them as he anchored them on the other man’s hips, drawing small circles with his thumbs across Richard’s hipbones.

“You’re so fucking gorgeous.”

Richard certainly liked the compliment as his chest puffed out even more; the merman leaned against the armrest of the couch and exposed his body to Paul, his smile full of mischief. “All yours, baby.”

Paul giggled and threw his own shirt away, closing the gap between them; he twisted one arm around Richard’s middle while he let the other anchor in his hair, tugging him down for a not-so-gentle and not-so-innocent kiss. Open mouthed, with their tongues meeting more than their lips did, the kisses forced both men to start clawing at the other one’s skin for as much contact as possible. Paul’s grip on Richard tightened and with one smooth twirl, he twisted the man around himself and back onto the sofa, pushing him down onto the soft mattress.

Richard fell down and caught himself on his elbows, impatiently licking his lips as he stared at the man above him. The man in question smirked down and undid his button and fly as well, expertly kicking the rest of his clothes away and then kneeled on the mattress, deciding what to do next. He looked down at Richard’s cock first; it was back to its full hardness, laying on the merman’s belly and twitching with every touch under Paul’s hand.

Paul lowered himself onto his hands, till he was face to face with the merman and when their eyes met, he let his right hand run down and grabbed his cock, absolutely falling in love with Richard’s surprised moan. He twisted his hand around his cockhead, his loose fist playing with the merman’s new foreskin. He then focused on Richard’s face and continued to watch his’s expressions; with every tug and turn of his hand the merman closed his eyes and opened his mouth, letting soft mewls escape straight into Paul’s ear.

“Fuck, Paul, this is- ah shit,” the man kept repeating his words like a mantra, not daring to interrupt the eye-contact between them, yet repeatedly failing to do so.

Letting Richard’s dick go, Paul tumbled next to him, leaning on his elbow over the merman.

“You gotta tell me what you want to do, because I’m about to lose my mind.” Paul deeply sighed, trying to get his breathing under control. He let his free hand run wild, creating undefinable patterns across the merman’s chest as he waited for his answer.

“Do whatever you want, just know I’m not going to last long,” Richard whispered and tried to hide his blushing face behind his arm.

Paul weighed the options; he didn’t buy any lube and he didn’t feel like sneaking naked into Till’s room in an attempt to find one so any more _complex_ play was out of the picture. He looked over the merman’s body, thinking and slowly coming up with a plan.

“Well,” he muttered, kissing him softly on the lips and moving away his arm to look into Richard’s eyes, “I think I should repay you the favour of our first time, no?” He smirked and dove down again, savouring yet another slow kiss.

“What do you me-“ The merman did not finish his sentence and only kept staring at the other man who decided to slowly trail a row of kisses down his neck, to his collarbones and across his chest, kissing each of his nipples and then continuing down. Paul’s kisses became sloppier as he was lower and lower, until his face stopped centimetres from Richard’s cock, the only touch being the hot puffs of air coming from Paul’s mouth.

Now, going down on Richard in his human form was somehow a more familiar territory. Not that he ever blew a guy before but having experience with his own dick he at least knew about the basics. Richard’s mermaidish dick was still quite the mystery to him, even though he had multiple chances to get up close and personal with it but all the slick, salt and flexibility still weirded him out. Though now, he was much more confident in his actions; he let his lips kiss the underside of Richard’s dick and trailed a row of wet kisses up, till he licked at the frenulum, his lips wrapping around Richard’s cockhead in one smooth motion.

As he hollowed his cheeks and sucked it in, Paul felt how Richard’s back arched under him and how his hands immediately grasped his hair, tugging him into the merman’s belly, forcing him to stay wrapped around his cock. Paul made himself a bit more comfortable between Richard’s legs and let his right arm encircle the dick, slowly pumping it with each bow of his head. Hearing the merman moan and sigh above him, Paul let his gaze travel up, anchoring his sight at Richard’s neck, the tendons in it dancing with the rhythm of his sucking; he watched him till Richard managed to raise his head and look down back at him, his eyes hazy and and half-lidded.

Paul hummed in content, his eyes crinkling at Richard’s whispered curses and his eyes rolling-back. He stuck his tongue out and gently lapped over Richard’s balls before he let his lips rest on the sensitive skin completely, sucking the skin in and out to stimulate the overworked nerves within. He dug his entire face into Richard’s crotch, devouring each and every sigh escaping the merman. After one stronger tug and Richard’s kick of his right leg, Paul rose up and chuckled, wiping saliva from his mouth.

“Still angry that it’s just hanging out, huh?” He cupped the merman’s balls once more and lightly squeezed them between his fingers.

“Oh fucking hell!” Richard hid his face between his arm and the pillow he was laying on, his cheeks totally red. “Don’t stop now, please!”

Grinning at the merman’s breathlessness, Paul once more lowered himself down and let his tongue travel from Richard’s balls to the tip, collecting some of Richard’s precum and then raised himself on all fours and let his nose tickle its way up to Richard’s chin. He kissed the panting merman, enjoying the desperate sighs Richard let out between the kisses. And while they were busy with licking into each other’s mouths, Paul aligned their bodies and started to gently rock against the other man.

“Oh fuck, Paul,” Richard moaned, digging his fingers into the smaller man’s shoulders and twisting his legs around Paul’s, ready to meet each of Paul’s moves with his own pelvis.

They didn’t have any proper rhythm, Richard was too far gone and too inexperienced with his new body and Paul got absolutely lost in every sound the other man made. He could only hear him, his own uneven breathing and the creaking of the springs under them, the sounds completely drowning them in their hurried, almost animalistic, fucking. In between their thrashing, Paul managed to spit into his palm and grab their cocks in between, quickly pushing both of them to their climaxes. A few pumps later and the merman came, wailing straight into Paul’s ear. Paul continued to jerk him off, spreading the merman’s cum all over them until he bucked his hips and came with a grunt too, letting his sperm cover both of their bellies.

They didn’t move until their breathing had calmed down and Richard’s thighs stopped twitching. Paul managed to lazily roll off the merman, letting his arm wipe some of the sweat on his brow. He looked at his partner who was in the process of letting his fingertips run through the stains on his belly, his eyes closed, and his teeth biting the bottom lip.

“Stop that,” Paul swatted Richard’s hand away, quietly laughing at Richard’s protesting hum, “Let me get some tissues or you’re gonna get the blankets dirty.”

With great difficulty, Paul managed to crawl over the merman and got up, shuffling to the kitchen to pick up some paper napkins and bringing them over to the couch. He threw them at the merman’s head and let himself fall onto the mattress; he picked the napkins and began to slowly clean both of them up.

“Why can’t you do this in the morning,” Richard huffed, watching the other man throw the used napkins on the ground.

“Because this is better. There’s no sea to wash ourselves in right now.” Paul flicked his fingers across Richard’s nose, snickering at the sleepy protests.

“There, done.” Paul threw the last napkin away and laid down, letting his left arm drape over the merman.

Richard turned and made himself comfortable on his belly, settling his head in his arms. “That was nice.”

“Only nice, huh.” Paul got closer to the crook of his elbow and nosed his way towards the merman’s face, seeking out a goodnight kiss.

“It was wonderful, and I can’t wait for more.” The merman raised his head and let himself be kissed for a while and then buried himself back into his arms.

“That’s better.” Paul kissed his shoulder and cuddled closer, letting his eyes rest on the merman till he fell asleep.

…

Both of them were woken up by loud noises coming from the kitchen; the sun was already up but the air felt cold, too cold actually for the stuffy room. While the merman grumbled and buried himself under the pillows, Paul sat up and looked around, rubbing rheum out of his eyes. His entire body jerked again when he heard the cluttering of the pans, forcing him to twist his body around and look into the kitchen, seeing Till there, opening windows and being uncharacteristically loud.

“Uh, Good morning?” Paul rasped and stretched his legs onto the floor.

“Yeah, good morning.” Till spared him a brief look, adding a sour smirk to indicate his mood.

“Did something happen?”

“Not really, I just forgot how thin the walls are here and how much of a horny bastard Richard is.” Till was turned with is back to them, slicing pieces of fruit into a bowl.

“Oh, shit.” Paul could feel his ears getting red. “Sorry.”

“Eh. Usually I wouldn’t mind it, but I’ve got a long day ahead and I wanted to have my sleep uninterrupted. Now come and help me.”

Paul smiled and got up, quickly putting on his discarded boxer shorts and collecting the tissues from the ground. He sneaked around Till and threw them into the trash, giving Till a sheepish smile. Before Till could anyhow comment on it he straightened up and took a knife into his hand, grabbing a loaf of bread.

“So, what do you want me to do today?”

“Nothing actually. That’s why I wanted to have a good night’s sleep. I’ll let you and the merman be and I’ll do all the needed work with Doom. You guys just enjoy yourselves.” Till smiled at him and turned to the table, setting the bowl with the fruits on it. “But God, go and have a shower, I don’t need the entire cottage to be smelling of sex and sweat.” He moved towards the door leading onto the porch and opened it, inhaling the fresh sea air.

“That goes for you too, fishboy,” Till laughed and grabbed an apple from the counter, chucking it at the body tangled in the blankets.

The body let out a groan and curled into itself, ignoring the bigger man. Paul put the sliced bread onto the table and moved back towards the couch. “C’mon sleepy head, we gotta shower.” Paul grabbed the hem of the blanket and tugged, stealing it from the merman in one smooth move.

“Do I have to?” The merman turned on his back, stretching across the entire mattress.

“Yes. Come on.” Paul offered his hand and waited for the merman to grab it so he could hoist him up. Richard eventually did so and together they moved to the bathroom, barely fitting inside.

Any thoughts of a morning sex in the shower were quickly dissolved; there was just enough space for one man within the cubicle, so Paul pushed Richard inside, instructing him what to wash with which bottle of shower gel. The merman started with the shampoo, carefully avoiding his eyes as he massaged the gel into his hair while Paul picked his toothbrush and lead him trough his morning routine, occasionally helping the merman out. When the merman was done, they’ve switched places, Paul gave Richard a new toothbrush while he quickly slid into the shower, being much faster than the other man.

A couple of minutes later they got out and found Till already sitting at the table, a coffee in one hand and his phone in the other. Paul sat the merman on the couch and put some of his clothes in his lap, instructing to put it on while he jogged upstairs to fetch some of his fresher clothes. When he returned, Richard was already sitting at the table, thankfully clothed, and in the process of spreading a heap of jam over his bread. For once, his hair wasn’t sticking out in all possible angles but was slicked back with droplets of water still running down his neck into his t-shirt, wetting the collar. Paul couldn’t resist and run his hand through the smooth locks, ruffling it and chuckling at the irritated noise coming from below.

“What do you want to do today?” Paul asked as he sat down and grabbed a piece of the bread and took the half empty jar from Richard’s hand.

“I’d like to go swimming, I miss the water,” Richard answered, looking at the droplets left on his arm.

“As hilarious as it sounds, you know you can’t swim, right?” Till laughed, drinking the rest of his coffee.

“Doesn’t mean I can’t go to the beach.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll take you there but I thought about travelling and stuff.” Paul took a bite of his bread, momentarily transforming into a hungry hamster.

“Oh, do you think we could go back to Germany? To Berlin?” Richard perched up, looking at the smaller man.

“No, not there.” Paul laughed. “I thought here, we could travel around the island.”

“But I wanna visit Berlin!”

“You can’t, Richard. You don’t have a passport nor any other ID and without it it’s impossible.”

“That sucks.” Richard puffed his cheeks, idly playing with the rest of his food.

“Can’t be helped. We still can travel around the island, there are a lot of places to visit.” Paul squeezed his hand, trying to trying to improve Richard’s mood.

“No more tall towers though, okay?” Richard smiled, squeezing his hand back.

“You guys can return the diary, since we already know what really happens in the caves.” Till stretched and got up from the table, putting his cup and plate into the sink. “It was a pretty place.”

“Yeah, we could do that, if the granny won’t kill us.” Paul laughed, surprised it is even possible to return the item.

“Should be okay.” Till patted his back and left for the porch door. “Anyway, have a nice day, I’m off to work.”

The men eventually moved outside too, straight onto the small beach next to the pier. Paul stood in the water up to his knees, watching as Richard took off all his clothes and threw them behind himself and then started to slowly move towards him. Paul had his swimming trunks on, and even though he sometimes swam naked too, he didn’t feel like it that morning and let the merman do what ever he wants. He slowly guided him into the deeper parts, until the water started to splash against their chests.

“This is so wrong,” Richard whispered as he held onto Paul’s biceps.

“Start treading the water, you’ve seen me do that hundreds of time. Just stomp the water, I’ll hold you.”

As it is with every beginner, Richard had problems with barely staying above the water. One time he slipped under and his instincts kicked in, forcing him to inhale underwater. Usually, there wouldn’t be any problem with it but now, he got water into his lungs and started violently coughing, his eyes watering with tears. He even tried to lock his legs and move them as he would move his tail. That technique didn’t last long; compared to his flexible tail, he could barely move his legs in the motion he felt was natural the most. At least for him. It didn’t stop him though, once he got his breath back, he continued trying kicking his legs, until he was more or less confidently treading the water next to Paul.

“Great, you’re a natural!” Paul beamed.

“Well, yeah. I know how water behaves.”

“Asshole.” Paul grinned and splashed some water in the merman’s face, laughing as Richard quickly repaid it with double the force. “Let’s try something more difficult, yeah?”

“Sure.” Richard smirked, shaking his head and messing up his hair.

“Okay, you’re gonna lay on my arms and try to dog paddle, it’s the easiest thing to do. Then we’ll try the good ol’ breaststroke.”

Richard then proceeded to listen to every word Paul said, letting him explain the different techniques and what to do with his body. At first they started with simply floating on the surface, which the merman did almost immediately as he quickly found his balance and stretched himself, peacefully floating next to Paul. Then he was forced to do the same on his belly, with the help of Paul who supported him from below as he started to kick his legs and paddle the water.

“This is so fucking useless. I feel so weak.” Richard hissed, his head once again almost disappearing under water.

“Don’t talk now,” Paul said, stroking Richard’s back, “of course it’s not the same as it was with your tail, but you need to know the basics.”

“I know, it just makes me anxious.”

“Hey, let’s stay here for a bit longer and then we can continue some other day, hmm?”

“Fine.”

“Good boy.” Paul kissed his nose and waited for the merman to get back into the correct position so they could continue.

Even with legs, Richard managed to start ‘swimming’ relatively fast. Paul still had to help him here and there but when Richard managed to paddle around him without accidentally swallowing or breathing in the salty water, he counted that as a huge success. He also decided that breaststrokes might not be the best decision and rather let the merman feel what felt the best for him, seeing as he preferred to kick his legs behind him rather than to the sides, creating a style between a crawl and the unsuccessful breaststroke.

They stayed in the water till noon, splashing around in the shallows until they both got tired and got back to the cottage to have a light lunch. Richard demanded that he _needed_ to help Paul with the preparation so Paul had to teach him how to cut meat and vegetables properly without slicing his fingers off. Richard’s results were wonky and uneven; each piece of the chicken was of different size and thickness, each piece of vegetable was turned into a mosaic of its previous self and if Paul didn’t stop the merman, the salad would drown in the olive oil that was supposed to be added just in a few drizzles. Once the salad was finally finished, they took it outside onto the porch, enjoying the light breeze from the sea.

“So, can we travel somewhere today?”

“Uh, sure?” Paul swallowed a mouthful and looked at the merman. “Do you want to go somewhere in particular?”

“Hmm,” the merman hummed, “The inland. Anywhere away from the ocean.”

“Okay.” Paul smiled, thinking about all the places he knew about. “Yeah, okay. We can pack right away and leave, I’m just gonna call Till to let him know.”

“Awesome.” Stretching his legs in front of himself, Richard wiggled his toes. “I can’t fucking wait.”


	9. Chapter 9

An hour later, they left the fishery. Paul had to pack most of the stuff as Richard just sat in the kitchen and proceeded to list every single thing he wanted to do or see. They didn’t exactly have a solid travelling plan, although Paul knew that in the end it wouldn’t matter that much, as the island was small and they’d probably manage to go through every significant point of interest. The call to Till confirmed it; Till had laughed at the merman’s impatience to leave the cottage and quickly mentioned a couple of places that were worth visiting, the old bookshop from where he had build his collection of books.

Paul had written all the names down and haphazardly scheduled their most important stops, knowing that at the end of the season there would always be free places in the local hotels or apartments, especially if they were further away from the sea. He also thought about going a step further and stealing Till’s old tent but then rather decided not to, as he had no idea how much the merman would enjoy staying in the middle of nowhere. Richard might have been used to sleeping on beaches and rocks or in the water as his mermaidish self but now, he had the tendency to complain if a part of the couch felt too hard than the rest and Paul did not want to risk Richard’s yapping for a day spent out of the civilization.

They still had a couple of hours before the sun would start to set so Paul decided they would start with going inland first, crossing the island through the middle and stopping in one of the many villages on the way.

“We’re not going to go far today,” Paul said as he turned onto a road which snaked into the hills in front of them, “there’s a wine village not far from here, I’m sure they have some spare rooms, so we can spend the night there.”

“If it’s not far why did you insist on me swallowing those pills?”

“Because I don’t want you to vomit from motion sickness. There’s going to be a shit-ton of hairpin turns before we get to the top.”

“It’s that bad?”

“For you? Yeah, probably.” Paul smiled and let his right hand rest on Richard’s thigh, squeezing it in reassurance.

Soon enough, the road started to twist and turn, rapidly scaling the side of the numerous hills, letting the sea’s horizon merge together with the blue skies above. The merman quickly lost his smirk as they rode on; his breathing got heavier and Paul had to ask him once in a while if he is okay, if he wants to stop and get out. Richard’s excitement still outweighed any nausea he felt which made him refuse all of Paul’s offers and only agreed to a stop when they finally reached the first of many tops of the mountain range. The stop was nothing more than a widened part of the road, filled with gravel and made exactly for the purpose of short stops and beautiful panoramic views of the coastline. Paul had to once again hold Richard’s hand; even though they were on stable ground, the merman refused to get to the edge and rather enjoyed the view from a safe distance.

The sea now was kilometres away, with an expanse of barren land, roads and villages spread across the empty space. Paul fished out his camera and left Richard near the car, taking a couple of pictures of the nature down below him – the last click of the camera was pointed the other way, capturing Richard leaning against door, patiently waiting for him. He slowly lowered the camera and let his eyes linger on his lover; Richard’s eyes were fixed on the horizon, unmoving. He had his hands in the pockets of his jean shorts, though Paul could easily see how strained his muscles were, his fingers surely twisted into tight fists. Paul took pride in quickly and correctly guessing the merman’s emotions, but now, he was not so sure. It could be excitement. It could be longing. It could be fear. Or a simple awe. As soon as their eyes met, all of Paul’s doubts vanished away; Richard’s grin radiated warmth and happiness all around him.

Less than two hours later, they entered a remote village in a dip between the hills, completely surrounded by vineyards, drowning it in a solitary atmosphere. Nothing more than a couple of small houses, a tiny church and even tinier hotel that was connected to the local restaurant were all the buildings that stood there, letting people cross the village in a matter of a few minutes. Paul squeezed the car next to the hotel, killed the engine and looked at the merman.

“Will you take the bags and join me inside? I’m gonna get us a room.” Paul took the keys out and opened the door, waiting for Richard’s answer.

“Sure, if you trust me enough.”

A wink and Paul left the car, jogging towards the entrance of the hotel; stepping over a dog sprawled in the door; he immediately caught the attention of an elderly man with with tanned skin and a bright smile on his face.

Richard himself collected their stuff from the trunk and slowly made his way over, carefully focusing on each step he made. He could already walk on his own, though the smooth stone under his feet made him a bit unnerved, momentarily slowing him down. He walked towards the door and stopped again, staring down at the dog. Now, he wasn’t particularly afraid of it but the step he’d have to take over him was scaring the merman too much. He stopped there, kept switching his gaze from the dog to the men inside, watching as Paul took a ring of keys from the man and turned to him, his smile widening into a grin as he immediately recognized Richard’s struggle.

“Don’t worry, he doesn’t bite,” the old man shouted, stepping onto the old wooden stairs twisting around the desk.

“Uh-huh.” Richard eyed the dog and the dog stared back at him, uncaring.

“C’mon now.” Richard could hear Paul near him and as he looked up; he was on the other side, hand stretched over the dog. “You heard him. He doesn’t bite.”

The mocking tone in Paul’s answer made Richard grind his teeth. “You know that I’m not afraid of him.” Richard hissed as he grabbed Paul’s hand and slowly stepped over him, taking extra care of each of his steps.

They’ve joined the man on the steps and he led them upstairs, explaining in broken English how everything works in the hotel. Once the man started to struggle with a word, Richard stopped him and started talking in the man’s native language, quickly resolving the man’s problem. If it was possible, the man’s smile widened even more under his bushy moustache, patting Richard on his shoulder and friendly showing him forward, towards their room. He quickly pointed to the old bathroom, to the two beds there and told the merman when the breakfast will be ready and where they can get it. He then said his goodbyes and walked out, shutting the door behind himself.

“So, you’re gonna charm every person on this island, huh?” Paul said as he walked towards one of the beds and pushed it, laying his entire body into it so he could move it to the other one.

“Can’t help it, I was just being polite.” Richard beamed at the smaller man, falling into the dusty bed and wincing a little bit at the hardness of the mattress. “Ouch. Well. He said that if we want to eat, the restaurant is open till ten.”

“Great, I’m starving.”

…

They were seated on the terrace of the restaurant, overlooking the vineyard that was attached to it. Richard was in the process of demolishing the appetizers; he kept stuffing his mouth with the bread they had brought them and occasionally switched between the spreads next to it, barely leaving anything for Paul. The owner gave them some of his own wine, spinning stories to Richard of how it was made and how much work it took to turn their grapes into the wine they were drinking – Paul had to snicker at Richard’s twisted face; he was used to sweet wine bought in shops and this was so much stronger, quickly inebriating the unsuspecting merman.

“The old bookshop is not far from here, we could drive there tomorrow.” Paul smirked into his own wine glass, appreciating the view of an over-grown hamster with his stuffed cheeks in front of him.

“You know where it is?” Richard swallowed his food, his eyes having difficulty to stay on Paul’s – there was so much food to try out!

“Yeah, Till gave me the address. It’s on the way.”

“Okay.” Richard took Paul’s hand into his, squeezing it gently. “You’re the captain here. I’ll be happy wherever we go.”

Any kind of other romantic display was immediately cut short; their plates arrived and Richard’s hand shot back, going for the giant burger in front of him. Paul just snorted and picked up his cutlery, slowly digging into his pile of pasta. He didn’t mind the quiet- They both had grown comfortable with spending hours of just laying or sitting somewhere, not saying a single sentence and enjoying each other’s presence. And if he had the chance to see the merman so happy too, his heart only swelled with love. Though seeing him with a barbeque sauce plastered all round his mouth and his fingers digging into his pile of fries was quite sobering as well.

So they ate their food in relative silence which was disrupted only by Richard’s occasional remarks of how good it all was and before they could realize it, they were both staggering up the stair back to their room, giggling at their own inebriation. Paul managed to unlock the door only on the third try; Richard decided to hug him from behind and lay his entire body onto him. He could feel his lips in the crook where his shoulder met his neck, resulting in him opening the door as fast as he could. They barrelled inside, Richard’s body pushing Paul straight onto the hard mattresses, knocking any air he had out.

He managed to roll the merman off of himself and straddled him, looking into Richard’s drunk and smiling eyes. “You’ve had a bit too much, no?”

“’s your fault you didn’t warn me,” The merman slurred, stretching his arms above his head, “The bed’s not so uncomfortable after all.”

“Oh, you’re not falling asleep like this.” Paul laughed and get off the merman. He grabbed him by his feet and started dragging him across the bed to lay him correctly on his mattress. “C’mon, undress yourself, you’re not a baby.”

“Noo, I’m tired.” The merman turned onto his belly and made himself comfortable, wiggling his ass at the amused man.

Paul didn’t have the energy to argue with him, so he at least took his shoes off and then took his time to drag Richard’s pants down his legs and then threw them over the nearest chair. He got rid of his own pants and shirt and then fell down next to Richard.

“Will you at least cover yourself, I don’t want you to catch a cold.”

“Nngh.”

“Fine.” Paul sighed and rolled his eyes, he was expecting Richard’s snoring any second. Scooting his butt higher, Paul took his own blanket and threw it over both of them, cuddling closer to the merman.

“Good night you drunkard.” He managed to kiss Richard’s shoulder, having the merman’s deep inhales as his only answer.

…

The morning, of course, brought a lovely headache and one very grumpy merman. He definitively had been drunk and had had hangovers before thanks to Paul, but his new body took a bit longer to absorb it all and it took him some time to crawl out of the bed and make himself presentable for the breakfast. The food helped them get back into their functional self and soon enough, Paul was paying for their stay while Richard took a short stroll around the tiny church in the middle of the village. Ten minutes later and they were both in the car, leaving the hotel behind them and continuing to their destination.

“I’ve received a text from Olli this morning.” Paul said as he steered the wheel. “He’s returning in five days and I think it would be absolutely hilarious if we picked him up.”

“Why would that be- Ooh yeah, he doesn’t know, does he?”

“Nope, nobody knows anything, not even Flake if Till haven’t already told him.”

“Then yeah, we can go. I’d love to see the airport from up close too.” Richard wiggled into his seat, grinning at Paul.

“Good.” He nodded to himself. “Now, by Till’s directions, it’s not far from the bookshop so we could go there today, return the diary and maybe shop around. By the afternoon we could arrive to the North and stay there in the city on the coast. They have a nice fortress there on one of the cliffs.”

“I think I know where it is, I often watched people climb there.” Richard drew the motion of people climbing up with his finger. “Watched a lot of them fall down, too.”

“Yeah, we’ll be getting there by the road so you won’t go crazy from the height.”

“Thank you.” Richard chuckled and looked out of the window to watch a herd of goats in the distance.

The more they travelled up and into the center of the island, the greener it became; Richard’s head stuck in the position with his face pointed up as he watched the car get engulfed by the branches of the trees lining the road. The wall of green expanded and suddenly they were swallowed by a small forest, the environment changing around them once again. Paul slowed down a bit and opened the windows, letting the merman bask in the shade. Some of the branches were so close that when Richard stretched his arm out, he could feel the leaves gently slapping against his open palm.

The road started to turn slightly left, snaking around the mountain that the forest covered – not too long and they would exit it. And soon enough, the trees were soon left behind them, the leafy space got quickly replaced by a view of an enormous slope filled with meadows and rocks and bushes that slowly ran towards the sea where a tiny dot of the promised city was. In the middle of the road, surrounded by a couple of trees and weirdly misplaced boulders laid another small village, the only proper indicator of civilization were the roofs of a couple of houses made of stone.

“That’s the place.” Paul nodded towards the village, speeding up a bit.

“Do you think they’ll be angry that we stole the diary from them?”

“Naw, don’t think so.”

…

They parked across the tiny street and once Paul made sure that he had the diary, they crossed the street and stopped in front of an opened door. The bookstore was in the ground floor of a two-storey house, the entrance had small wooden planks above, holding the grape vines that worked as an impromptu roof. The old windows next to the door were already filled with books, some of them looking much older than Richard or Paul themselves. The men took a deep breath and walked inside, immediately inhaling the slightly stale smell of the old books. There was a radio playing somewhere in the distance, otherwise it was completely quiet in there.

While Paul tried to look for anyone, Richard started to trace the spines of the books put on the tables in the room, randomly picking up some and attempting to read the titles. _Mythology. Astrology. Astronomy. Supernaturals._ This shop definitively had a theme. A small book stuffed into the corner of a shelf caught his eye; Richard took it out and let his fingers trace the golden engraving in the now washed-out turquoise cover. It depicted a couple of mermaids chasing each other around the title of the book – he was about to start slowly spelling out the name when a cough stopped him. The men simultaneously looked towards the source and saw an elderly woman, her stern gaze rendering both of them speechless.

“And who are you?” She cocked her head, her strong accent making her even more intimidating.

“Ah, hello,” Paul said as he stepped closer, extending his arm to shake the woman’s hand, though he immediately putt it down back to his hip when he saw no movement from her side, “We came here to return something to you. And maybe buy something, too.” He added when he saw Richard picking up all kinds of trinkets from the old shelves.

“Return, huh?” The woman kept her arms crossed, her eyes following Richard.

“Y-yes. A friend of ours, uh, _purloined_ a diary and we would like to give it back.” Paul insecurely pulled his hand back and scratched the back of his neck. For an eighty-something woman who was barely reaching Paul’s shoulders, she certainly managed to make his blood run cold. Her glare could rival Richard’s when he was angry. He barely had the time to take the book out of the paper bag; her fast fingers took it from him and she immediately started paging through, looking for any damage.

“Is it okay if we look around?” Paul quietly asked, his eyes settling on Richard again, who was in the process of piking up yet another useless knickknack. He was already balancing a glass paperweight and a tiny statue of a dancing human made of copper wires on top of the book, his other hand gripping an old hand mirror, the surface of it cracked, reflecting the room in three different angles.

“If you pay,” the woman hummed, her eyes glued to the pages of the diary – especially to those that have been bookmarked by the men. Her frown deepened even more as she started to listen to what the men were talking about between each other. Said men were in the middle of an argument over a small clay statue of an elephant. She couldn’t understand their German but it was easy to deduce that the taller man wanted it for no proper reason. He was also already hoarding a new small pile of books, all of them bearing symbols, titles, or drawings connected with the sea. And Mythology.

After a final look, she pocketed the diary under her apron into one of her many pockets on her skirt and strode over to Richard, pushing Paul away.

“You,” she said, waiting to grab his attention, “look at me.”

“Is something wrong?” Richard turned to her, setting the books aside.

He barely had the time to collect himself; the woman took him by his chin and forcefully brought his face to level with hers. She looked deeply into his eyes and then over the rest of his body, her eyes narrowing every time she found something unusual. Richard could only hold his breath.

“I know those eyes,” she whispered, “and the body.”

“W-what do you mean?” Richard nervously laughed. “Do I remind you of someone perhaps?”

The woman was silent and let her gaze move to Paul. “I’m not stupid.” She then switched to the locals’ language, looking back at Richard. “It’s been some time since you people crawled out of the sea.”


	10. Chapter 10

Richard felt his heart drop. Was he supposed to confess? To lie more? His eyes kept running from Paul to the woman, not knowing what to answer. His larynx bobbed as he swallowed, hid mouth open yet silent. Her tone wasn’t exactly hostile, Richard could hear her almost perfectly disguised surprise as she talked and her own eyes sparked with interest as she once more looked at him. He still didn’t know what to say; He did not think about someone recognizing him at all. All he managed to do was to step a bit closer to Paul, his eyes jumping from her to his partner.

“What are you doing here?” she continued, confusing Paul as well with her diligence of keeping him out of the conversation by speaking in her native language.

Her answer was Richard’s stunned silence.

“Is he not allowed to speak to strangers or what?” The woman finally turned to Paul, switching to English.

“What is going on?” Paul frowned, stepping closer to the merman and grabbing him by his bicep.

Richard swallowed one more time and let his wide eyes rest on Paul. “She knows.”

Wordlessly, the woman nodded to the other side of the bookshop, where a small wooden door lead outside, to the other side of the house. She grabbed a book hidden under one of the tables and opened the door, waiting for the men to follow her. Paul quickly found Richard’s hand and intertwined their fingers, squeezing his hand as a signal to calm him down; he didn’t need to ask more questions, the woman looked confident in her guessing and when she coughed while she was waiting for them, he immediately followed her, dragging the merman onto the porch outside.

She sat them down at a small round table in the shadows of the upper floor of the house, giving them the chance to see the wonderful view of the north coast. There were more vineyards under them, running down the hill till they merged with dry grass, the land eventually ending with yet another small town hugging the sea shore. They could even see the castle Paul promised they would visit; the structure sat atop a rock cliff right on the left side of the town, cutting it from the rest of the coast. Richard let his little hoard of books on the top of the table and carefully watched as the old woman settled across them and added her own book onto Richard’s pile.

“When did this happen?”

“Huh?” Both men said in unison.

“When did the change happen?”

“A couple of days ago, at the beginning of the Harvest Moon.” Paul managed to collect himself first, scooting a bit closer with his chair.

“You are lucky,” the woman said, her eyes squinting at Richard, “You could’ve died there. If there is no moon visible, nothing happens.”

It took a couple of second for Richard to blink away his stunned mind. He took a deep breath and looked into the woman’s eyes: “Who are you? How do you know this? How did you recognize me?”

She only raised her eyebrows in surprise, not believing the merman’s boldness.

“That is not important.”

“Dammit, answer me woman!” Paul could see the tendons in Richard’s neck strain, underlining his sudden panicked irritation.

“You temperament men!” The woman scoffed, smirking to herself. “My nana told me that her male counterparts were much more insufferable.”

“Y-your nana?”

“Yes. She was lured out too, many years ago. Decided to stay and live on land, have a family, build a house.”

If they were surprised before, now she managed to drive them completely speechless. And by the look she was giving them, she was not doing it for shits and giggles. The quietness that had settled among them was deafening; Paul tried to come up with new questions while Richard kept staring into nothingness, his brain going into an overdrive. Why didn’t he hear about his people disappearing? Why were the elders so adamant about staying away from the caves? How did they all manage to keep quite about it all? After some time, he managed to finally speak out:

“Decided to s-stay? We have a choice?”

“You don’t know that?”

“No, the elders are keeping us away from that place. I managed to get there because… well, because I could.”

“You were cast out.” The woman deadpanned. “You felt in love with a human.” She nodded to Paul.

“How do you know so much?” Finally, Paul found his voice and leaned onto the table.

“I told you. My grandmother was one of them, she used to tell me tales about her people from her youth. Apparently she was one of the last ones who underwent the change.” Her eyes moved to Richard. “Until you happened.”

“But the last contact we read about were from two hundred years ago, more or less.” Paul patted one of the books.

“A contact that was noted in a book. A book I’ve been trying to get my hands on for some time. I don’t like when the information gets out, I promised my family I will keep it safe.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Richard stopped her with a raised finger. “What about the diary then, was it yours? If you knew about that place why would you write about it in such a way?”

“Because it was my friend’s, you idiot. Why would I write in English?” She momentarily switched back to her native language to let out a couple of colourful curses. “We were young and I wanted to check the place out. I didn’t know what we would really find there.”

“Oh.” Richard straightened up, trying to make sense of it all. “And I guess your grandmother’s case is similar to mine?”

“Clever boy,” she crooned, her smirk turning into a somehow genuine smile, “she fell in love with my grandfather when he saved her from some old nets. She tried her luck and managed to stay here.”

Richard watched her as she paused and then grabbed the book she brought with her and opened it. While she was paging through he looked at Paul; said man was deep in thought, one hand resting over his mouth while the other was gripping the armrest of the chair. The merman sneaked his hand over to it, covering it with his own. Just as Paul felt the feather touch of Richard’s fingers his eyes left the book’s pages and rested on the merman’s; both of them had a similar look in their eyes, they certainly didn’t expect to meet Richard’s distant kin (did she even count?) and be immediately recognized. At least it was not that kind of a recognition that would leave them stranded on a fishing boat in the middle of the night with a bunch of ruthless mercenaries around.

When Richard heard the small victorious gasp of the woman he looked over, skimming across the pages she had stopped at. As much as he was unsettled by her sharp eyes, he couldn’t believe his luck at finding somebody who knew about his problem so much more than he does. Probably even more than the elders do, too. He tried to read some of the hand-written passages she marked with her fingers but couldn’t get past a few words; reading upside down and some stranger’s handwriting was still completely out of his league.

“This was written by my grandmother,” the woman spoke up, waiting for the men to focus on her, “she noted all that happened to her in the case somebody like her would crawl out too. Since you are already here, you know what to do to to get here on land, right?”

“Ah, well. I think I just got lucky.” Richard scratched his neck, avoiding her gaze once again. “I knew about the caves and that there was something going on with them; our leaders strictly forbade us from getting near them during these times. Plus I knew that there’s a probability of a change as we read about people appearing here suddenly, without explanation. It was a wild guess gone right.”

“So you either must be ridiculously strong-headed or be blindly in love to do this without any additional information,” She chuckled, shaking her head in amusement, “Well, the change is influenced by the moon and the storms. My nana wrote down that sometimes she would wait for days in the caves, with bruises and disoriented, hoping for the storm to kick in and change her.”

“She did that more than once?”

“Yes, before she was sure she returned to the sea many times. She decided to stay only a couple of years after she discovered that this was possible.”

Richard had a newfound respect for the mermaid; she willingly went through so much pain and danger repeatedly, just to be with her loved one? Well, considering all the things he would do for Paul, he could probably do it too. He was also relieved that the change was reversible. He liked to be able to walk on land and talk to other people but to permanently stay here? He was still too scared to do that.

“And how did she change back before she decided to stay here?” The merman immediately asked, intertwining his fingers on top of the table.

“The same way, really. But it must be done in the window that is the Harvest festival, otherwise you’ll be stuck here. Possibly forever.” She tapped another section of the book, letting her index finger glide down across a couple of lines. “It all works the same way; you must be lucky with the weather. Plus the water currents work the other way apparently, you must be careful when you get in there as it has a tendency to suck you under the water into the tunnels and without gills, you’re dead.”

“Oh.” Richard straightened up, looking over at Paul. “Wait. What do you mean I could get stuck here?”

“Well, before she decided to stay here for the rest of her life, she always stayed here only for the duration of the Harvest Moon, not longer. And after she stayed here for a year, the next time she barely had any longing to get back.” The woman leaned into her chair and intertwined her fingers together in her lap. “That’s at least my grandmother’s experience. She believed that she wouldn’t chance back if she tried as she didn’t long for the depths anymore, not even subconsciously.” She then made a sound of uncertainty and shrugged. “She could be wrong, after all, she didn’t know much herself as well. I also _hope_ you didn’t tell about it to anybody else. No matter how strong one’s mind can be, once the secret is revealed, they will follow.”

“Is that why the elders keep it away from us?”

“Most likely, better to have no one changed than have a half of the school dead due to recklessness.”

“Ah, well, no. It was just me. As you guessed correctly, I’ve been casted out.” Richard nodded to himself.

“Richard,” Paul suddenly said, his voice a bit unsure, “You’ve told Doom about it. He saw you.”

A pause. All the blood left Richard’s face in a matter of a second. His lips parted and his eyes filled in panic.

“But you know him! He wouldn’t do that! He has no reason to!”

“You don’t need a proper reason to go there, curiosity is enough.” The woman made herself comfortable in her chair, watching the men hurriedly talk to each other, their German quiet and filled with worry.

“I can’t have Doom’s blood on my hands! I can’t Paul! We have to get back!”

“Relax, Richard.” Paul grabbed him by his shoulder and squeezed it. “Let me call Till, yeah?”

The smaller man excused himself and got up, walking into the garden a bit, picking up his phone. He quickly found Till’s number and dialled him up, hoping that he would answer him. There was not much of a chance that he would know more, but after all, Doom was supposed to be helping Till back at the fishery; so as long as the merman stays there with him, he should be safe. Thankfully, after a couple of rings and an absolute silence, Paul got to hear Till’s voice from the other side.

“What’s up?”

“Hey Till, you’ve got a second?”

“Sure. Is something wrong?”

“A little bit. Have you seen Doom today? Or yesterday?”

“Yeah, he’s right here. Sunbathing on the pier. You wanna talk to him?” Paul let out a relieved sigh as he heard Till moving, walking across the wooden planks.

“Ah, not really. Just, just please, keep an eye on him. Don’t let him leave the fishery, please.”

“Why? Is something going on? More hunters on the loose?” Till stopped walking, his voice dropping an octave lower.

“No, no hunters. But we just, um, received information that he could follow Richard and disappear into the caves too. You need to keep him busy and safe, please.” Paul unconsciously kept tugging at his hair, tangling his fingers around the brown strands to keep himself busy and focused.

“Sure?” Till drawled out, his tone turning sceptic. “He doesn’t look like he’s planning to go there, though.”

“Apparently, he doesn’t have to plan it. It’s a subconscious thing and sooner or later he might not be able to resist and he’ll leave for the caves.” Paul turned back to the couple seated around the table and watched as the woman kept explaining something to the merman.

“Just keep an eye on him, okay? We’ll be back in a couple of days and then we can take care of him.”

“Whatever you say. I was planning on working with him anyway; we came up with so many new ideas, you have no idea. I’ll tell you when you get back, for now just enjoy your holiday.” A bit of positivity returned to Till’s voice, his tone turning warm again.

“Thank you. Take care.”

When Paul returned to the table, the two of them were finishing what must have been a heated discussion. Not a bad one though, as the woman’s lips kept twitching as she attempted to school her expression while Richard was grinning, playing with his thumps resting on his lap. Paul patted Richard’s shoulder and sat back down onto his chair, sighing in relief.

“Doom’s still with Till. He’s gonna keep him busy.”

“Oh thank god.” The merman let his head fall back and proceeded to stare into the cloudless sky. “I hope that he is more reasonable than I am.”

“Seems to be so far.” Paul grinned at Richard, sticking his tongue out between his teeth.

“Hey!” Richard nudged his knee and straightened up in the chair. “ _Maria_ here told me it would be a good idea to keep checking the weather updates, I can’t miss the window.”

“Ah.” Paul stood in alarm, extending his right arm to the woman. “I’m Paul.”

He was surprised when the woman kept only staring at his outstretched arm, not moving to shake it in return. Once Paul got the clue he sat back down and coughed in embarrassment.

“We don’t need to know each other,” she said as she glanced at Richard, “It’s better that way. I gave you all the information you need; watch the storms, look after each other and make sure nobody follows you. All of this is supposed to be a secret.”

“Of course.” Paul nodded and then looked around. “Well, you can be sure we won’t tell about you to anybody. At least not to anybody outside of our circle.”

“I would appreciate that.” Maria smiled, her wrinkles deepening.

“She gave me her number if we wanted to know more.” Richard wiggled a piece of paper between his fingers. “Oh and-“ He quickly looked at Maria and then back at Paul “-will you buy me at least this book? She said she will let me have it as she has a copy.” He tapped the turquoise leather cover of one of the books.

“Sure.” Paul fished out his wallet. “How much?”

…

She was still watching them from the doors as they got into their car. Paul gave her a tight lipped smile as he started the engine and slowly rolled onto the road, adding a last goodbye nod to the woman. It took them only a couple of turns to get out of the village and soon enough they were continuing downhill, to the city below them. Once Paul made sure that there were no diversions he needed to pay his attention to, he looked over to the passenger seat at his partner, who was fully engrossed in his new purchase. The merman was slowly turning the pages, his eyes devouring the pictures and handwritten texts around them. Once in a while he traced a line, his fingers bumping across the old paper.

“Did you expect that?” Paul finally spoke out, his eyes once again focusing onto the road.

“Hmm?” Richard’s head shot up, looking at Paul. “Holy shit, no. Do you think that Till knew? And set us up?”

“I don’t think so. He only knew about the books.” 

“Oh yeah.” Richard nodded, his sight returning to the green fields outside the car. “It’s still so surreal. If I still had the connection, I would totally try to find out who her grandmother was. Maybe we could be even related.” The merman grinned, laughing at Paul’s shocked expression. That of course, was a bit of a reach. He had already told Paul that they don’t really know who their parents are, they can only guess if they have similar features with some of the mermaids from the older generations. Nonetheless, it could be interesting to find out who this rogue mermaid was. She certainly had been much more brave than Richard is; while he loved being on the dry land, he was quite relieved that his problem does not have to be a permanent one. He still was not sure if he could abandon his previous life completely and it felt good to know that he had a chance to return back. And while he was musing about his possible future, Paul’s voice once again caught his attention.

“What? Sorry, I got lost in my thoughts.”

“I asked why you wanted that book – what is it about?” Paul nodded towards the bundle in Richard’s lap.

“Ah that.” The merman gripped it by its sides and picked it up, his cheeks suddenly more red than before. He also could not stop the grin that came with his answer: “That book is about our life.”

“Just your life?” Paul’s eyebrows rose in question.

“About our love life. Mating cycles, partners, childbirth… It’s about the good ol’ fucking.”

Paul’s groan of embarrassment was then easily drowned out by Richard’s cackle; the merman was absolutely enjoying Paul’s flustered speechlessness. Then, as an afterthought, he added: “It’s time I taught _you_ a thing or two as well.”


	11. Chapter 11

Finding an empty hotel room at the end of a season was never hard. They managed to pay for a nice room right in front of the beach, with the view of the sea and its horizon. While Paul filled their wardrobe with their clothes, Richard spent the time by the windows, leaning out and watching small groups of people in the afternoon sun. He had his eyes glued on a young family; the father kept throwing his laughing children into the water, while the mother stood nearby, taking pictures of her family playing. Paul’s lips gently twitched into a smile every time he heard the merman gasp or quietly laugh at the people below.

He would never guess how much the merman loved watching people do ordinary, everyday things. Things he would find even annoying such as a loud family on a vacation but now, the merman’s wonder and delight started to seep into him, making him love the chaotic noise coming from outside too. And every time he actually caught one of the many smiles of the merman, he felt his heart beat in pure adoration for the other man.

When Richard finally managed to peel his eyes away from the beach, he came face to face with Paul who had his colourful button-up in his hands, staring at it in confusion with his brow knotted in question.

“What?” Richard laughed and stepped closer, placing his hands over the fabric on top of Paul’s hands.

“You really like this?”

“Yeah, I do. It’s a shame I couldn’t buy more.”

“I wouldn’t let you.”

“Oh, please.” Richard momentarily snaked his arms around Paul’s neck and brought him closer to give him a quick kiss. “You would buy me a hundred more, I know you.” He then quickly snatched the shirt from his hands and stepped away, ready to take his t-shirt off.

Paul watched as the merman fought with the first shirt and then crossed his arms, amusingly watching his partner struggle with the buttons. Richard actually managed to do half of his shirt before he angrily sighed, realizing he put the buttons in the wrong holes, making the entire thing lopsided. Paul shook his head and with a chuckle stepped closer, re-buttoning the shirt correctly. He let the last two buttons be, smoothened the collar of the shirt and then trailed his fingers down the fabric, anchoring them at the merman’s hips.

“You’re lucky that you look good in anything. The shirt is atrocious.”

“No, it’s not. You just don’t understand fashion.” Richard answered, throwing his head to the side and puffing his chest out to show off the shirt.

“Me, a human, not understanding human fashion. Okay.” Paul laughed and let one of his hands run down and squeeze Richard’s ass. “C’mon you fashionista, let’s get out. You promised me to tell me about you guys after all, no?”

“Lead the way.” Richard extended his arm, waiting for Paul to grab his things and get in front of him. And when he had enough space, Richard returned the squeeze with a perfectly timed slap across Paul’s ass, laughing at the smaller man’s shocked yelp. Paul brought his right hand to rub his backside and narrowed his eyes at the merman, trying to look as annoyed as possible. Though Richard knew him well enough. He gabbed the smaller man’s hand on his ass and intertwined their fingers together, stepping out of the hotel, ready to get lost within the streets.

…

After two ice-cream stops, a local museum visit, and a short shopping at a convenience store, they once again ended up at a restaurant, this one being much smaller and cosier than the one that was in the village. They sat around a small table with wonky legs, with chairs so small the men could barely sit on them comfortably and yet both of them wanted to stay there (especially Richard) as they were attracted by the incredible smells coming from within. Paul sipped his beer and panned his eyes from the street in front of them to the row of palm trees and the beach strip behind it, watching the last of the beach’s visitor going home; the air was still warm and while the sun was slowly making it’s way down in the west, it still packed enough power to make Paul sweat. Thankfully, the beer helped a lot.

Richard was busy looking through the postcards they had bought at the museum. The museum, they found out, was about the island’s fishing history. Paul found it fascinating, he spent minutes pouring over the exhibition of different harpoons, nets, and even prams and boats, reading every single piece of information that was available. Richard in the beginning enjoyed it too, letting his chin rest on Paul’s shoulder as the other man quietly read out all the historical facts to him. Though his mood slowly turned a bit sour as he saw more and more of the tools and weapons used by the local people. He held on Paul’s hand and when the smaller man felt how hard his grip was, he tried to calm him down, explaining to him that it was for fish only. Richard’s short answer that it was not only fish who got stuck in discarded nets in the water, that he himself had the pleasure of getting tangled in Till’ nets made Paul move through the museum a bit closer. Richard’s anxiety slowly disappeared when they moved to a room filled with empty seashells, corals and mounted fish on the walls- from tiny clownfish to dangerous-looking swordfish. The merman immediately pointed out all the fish he met or had the chance to see, all the corals that had died out and some that could still be seen around the island. He then helped Paul pick up the postcards; Paul wanted to send them to his kids and Richard _demanded_ that it’s going to be him who _chooses_ the pictures and writes all the stuff down.

“So.” Paul sipped at his beer and licked the foam off his upper lip. “We have time now. You can start talking.”

Richard looked up, his questioning eyes crinkling as he smiled. “Sure.” He put the postcards back into the plastic bag with the rest of the bought groceries.

“But first, you tell me about your, um, _rituals_. I need to know what’s the same and what’s not.” He sipped at his drink, which was a blue cocktail, garnished with a slice of a pineapple. “Damn that’s good.”

“Uh, I thought you’ll be the one talking. I don’t even know where to begin. Plus I though I’ve told you already how it works with us, more or less.” Paul’s voice was suddenly lower, his eyes glued to his beer.

“Remind me, then.” Richard shot him a toothy grin, sipping his cocktail. He took out the small paper umbrella and began to roll it with his thumb and index finger, waiting for Paul’s answer.

Paul took a large gulp of his drink and looked up, letting his head rest against the wall behind him and sighed deeply. “Well. There is no damn mating season for starters, if you want to fuck, you fuck. And if you’re fucking a woman you either need a condom or she needs to be on the pill. Or whatever else they can stop pregnancies with. Otherwise you can get her pregnant and boom, nine months later, you have a baby.” He snapped his fingers and looked over at his lover. When he saw how genuinely he was interested, his own embarrassment lessened a bit.

“Usually two people date for a while, go out, live together, and stuff. Then they can get married; some do it for love, some for money, and some because they got their girlfriend pregnant. The custody over the child is then so much easier. And some literally just fuck around, without any deeper bonds, like Till does,” Paul paused, narrowing his eyes and thinking if he needed to add anything, “It’s not that complicated, really. Or do you want to know more?”

“Yeah, you talked about pills and condoms, why do you need those? You can get pregnant anytime?”

“Birth controls pills stop women’s fertility. Condoms stop me from getting her pregnant, from possible illnesses and it can make it more comfortable.” God, Paul hoped that nobody near them could understand German.

“Yeah but what are those?”

“You’ll see soon enough.” The smaller man actually had the courage to wink and to wiggle his eyebrows at the merman, sipping his beer once again. “Now. Your turn. You can start with why are you so surprised with our need to be careful around man-on-woman sex.”

“Because we’re not really fertile when it’s not needed? That’s why we have those mating seasons I told you about.”

“Wait.” Paul leaned across the table on his crossed arms. “You’re shooting blanks?”

“I don’t know. Probably.” The merman shrugged, his cheeks turning a bit more rosy than they were before. “It’s just when you have sex with a female nothing will come out of it if we’re not in heat.”

Paul opened his mouth, inhaling and ready to ask more questions when the merman silenced him with a gesture of pointing his umbrella at him. “Let me explain. So from what I understand, you guys can have offspring-children-sorry, anytime. We can’t. We have them only every couple of cycles and those I think correspond with your yearly calendars. So, we have them every couple of years, but in greater numbers.

It all starts with the water just smelling, _tasting_ different. Especially around our girls. It literally will drive us mad if we won’t do anything about it. We become a bit more rowdier, but we won’t hurt each other. _Too much_. Maybe if there was more of us we would fight over the territory and the girls but since there’s not much of us, we just share. And it’s so much better. One day all this roughhousing and horsing around turns into a giant orgy.”

Richard had to laugh at how Paul’s eyes almost fell out of their sockets. The smaller man barely managed to keep the beer in his mouth.

“It’s messy. It’s wild. And absolutely beautiful.” Richard’s toothy grin widened. “We all just breed, sometimes girls join other girls, or you join other men. It takes a couple of days, if not weeks and at the end you’re completely exhausted.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Paul sat up bit straighter, his voice turning into a whisper. “If you all fuck each other and don’t know who your blood family is, how do you know you’re not doing your sister? Or worse: your own kid?”

Richard frowned, shooting Paul a baffled look. “We wouldn’t touch the kids, the elders take them away when it all starts. And even if yours are already adults, you know you shouldn’t touch anyone who’s much younger than you. _And_ if you have siblings, you just can’t smell them like the others, they don’t attract you. It’s just weird that once all of this is over, you can’t remember who it was. It’s like your brain just resets.” His expression softened once again, his eyes becoming dreamy. “I told you I suspect that three of our younglings could be mine, right? Well two of them are almost young adults and not only it will still take them a couple of years to get into heat too but also when they finally will reach that, they definitely won’t join my group.”

“Ah.” Paul leaned back into his seat, stretching his feet in front of him. “I see.”

Richard was about to continue, yet (un)fortunately the plates full of freshly fried fries and gigantic burgers that the waiter brought rendered him silent, his eyes and mind focused on the food. He quickly thanked the waiter and grabbed a handful of the fries, stuffing them inside his mouth. Paul once again watched him battle the still too hot food, his own hand gently wrapping around the bun of the burger. “Slow down, you hungry wolf.”

“Mmhm,” the merman hummed as he chugged down half of his cocktail, “it’s good. I can’t help it. Anyway, back to what I was talking about. Once this is over it takes a couple of week to recognize which girl got pregnant and then it takes almost a year before the offspring are born.” Richard swallowed another fry and then his smile saddened a bit. “A number of girls can lose their babies during that time, it’s really exhausting for them and difficult for us to keep them all safe and healthy.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that.” Paul extended his arm over the table and squeezed Richard’s in reassurance.

“It’s okay. That’s just life.” Richard smiled back, appreciating the gesture.

“You’ve also talked about having mates, hell, it wasn’t just once you yourself called me your Mate.” Paul squeezed his hand again, his own smile turning into a mischievous one, encouraging Richard to continue.

“Ah.” Richard’s eyes brightened and not only because his burger was finally cool enough to bite into without burning the roof of his mouth. “Sometimes some of our people create pairs or smaller groups that are tightly knit together. It’s not that common but if it happens, it’s usually among the girls. Us men, we were encouraged not to do that, which is logical when there’s not enough of us, but it’s still pretty stupid. I can’t control the nature. Or my heart. Once you choose somebody it’s pretty much impossible to separate.”

“Out of curiosity, when did you choose me?” Paul asked.

“That faint scar I left in the crook of your neck wasn’t just because I felt like biting you harder that day, I was marking you. It’s done subconsciously, to be honest. But I knew I had to have you long before that.”

“ _Oh_.” Paul’s right hand immediately shot to his collarbones, his fingers tracing up and to the side till they bumped over the fait, white marks in the tanned skin. So that’s what it was. Letting his fingers caress over the barely visible scar made his belly muscles spasm, red heat pooling in his crotch. He liked that he was marked. That he could visibly show he was taken and owned and that he belonged. He liked how Richard’s gaze followed his fingertips, the merman’s tongue escaping his mouth to lick his lips. Suddenly, Paul felt like returning back to the hotel felt like a great idea. Too bad that they just started to eat. He crossed his legs and eventually managed to will his dick to behave.

“But I wanted that book for other purposes.” Richard spoke after a while, when half of his food had already disappeared from his plate. “It was written by her grandmother, a mermaid that fell in love with a _man_. I want to know what I’m dealing with.”

Paul had to snort, it sounded like he was a case that detective Richard needed to solve. “And what are you dealing with?”

“Well, I want to know if I’m one hundred percent human now or if I still am just a merman but with legs. And no gills. And what should I do if the mating season comes, it’s been some time since the last one happened.” Richard wiggled his eyebrows.

“Ah, well, you should probably return to your school during that time, no? They would welcome you, at least during that time.” Paul averted his eyes, feeling how his cheeks were getting hot once again.

“But I don’t want to, I have you.” Richard swallowed, almost finishing his food. “I just want to know what she went through, there’s nobody else who could tell me more about my situation.”

“Well, it’s a good thing that the woman let us even buy it. She looked like she wanted to kill us.”

“Nah, she was only cautious. She told she promised her grandmother she would guard the secrets with her life, unless someone like me appears.”

“Well, that’s good to know.” Paul sighed and stuffed the last piece of his burger into his mouth. After both of them were finished, the men decided on a second row of their drinks, letting the last sunrays of the day warm their bodies. Paul thoughtfully watched Richard over the rim of his glass, his eyes taking in the merman’s appearance. He had his legs outstretched and crossed at his ankles with his upper body leaning into the old chair. No matter how much Paul hated the atrocious shirt he had to acknowledge how well the shirt fit him. Though upon a closer inspection, it looked just a little bit too tight. The buttons on his pectorals looked like they could pop any second and if the merman decided to flex his arms, he would definitely rip the seam on his biceps. He was already familiar with the collar but what amazed Paul more was that for some reason, Richard managed to make his hair stand up even without any proper hair product. Sure, it was short enough to not fall over, but his _hairstyle_ was just a little bit too much intricate to be done without any help. That probably answered the question if he was fully human or not.

“Hey, is that a guitar?” Richard perched up, his head quickly turning to Paul.

“Hmm?” Paul hummed and straightened up, listening for said instrument. He could hear it soon enough; someone on the beach was tuning a guitar, an electric one. And by the other sounds he caught, there were definitely drums and a bass too. “Sounds like a band is gonna be playing soon.”

“Oh!” Richard’s excited exclamation was almost too cute. Paul had to laugh how the merman devoured the piece of a pineapple stuck to the glass and swallowed the rest of the sweet liquid in a second. “Can we go?”

“You know what,” Paul said, smiling into his glass while he fished out his wallet, “let me drink the rest of my beer in peace and take care of the bill. Can you do that?” He wiggled his eyebrows for a good measure.

“I can try.” Richard barely finished the sentence and was already standing up, with Paul’s wallet in his hand. It seemed like when he was eager to be somewhere or to do something, all his anxiety would wash away. Paul kept drinking his beer and watched the merman over his shoulder, ready to get up if there were any problems.

Of course, there was no need to worry. The merman got to the bar and started chatting with the barman, letting the wallet rest on top of the counter. The man behind the counter eagerly kept answering anything the merman asked, his smile widening with every second he spent near him. Paul knew he shouldn’t be jealous, just a moments ago the merman confessed to him that he only belongs to him just as Paul belongs to him, yet somehow, he didn’t find the exchange as endearing as he found it for the first time with the shy waitress. He drank the last droplets of his beer and set the glass down, moving towards the exit to lean against the wide wooden doorframe of the restaurant. He watched as Richard accepted the receipt from barman and with a last nod he turned away and jogged back towards him.

“Here’s the wallet.” Richard handed over the item. “And here’s the receipt. He demanded I take it.” A pause. “Wait what’s that?” Richard pointed to a scribble at the bottom.

Paul pocketed his wallet and looked over, focusing on the piece of paper. “That looks like his number,” he whispered, not believing his eyes, “He gave you his number. Motherfucker.”

Before Richard could have any more questions, Paul turned his head and looked over his shoulder and when he knew he had the barman’s attention, he snaked his arm around Richard’s waist, anchoring it possessively at his side. He nodded towards the barman, his eyebrows rising in a challenging question. Once he saw how the barman’s smile faltered, he turned back to Richard and pushed him forward, towards the source of the music. When they were far enough, he relaxed his hold a bit, letting the hand rest comfortably on Richard’s hip and leaning a little into Richard’s arm around his middle. He had to laugh at himself, Paul never would have thought he could get jealous over a guy flirting with his partner.

“What’s so funny? And what was wrong with the number? Maria gave me one as well.”

“The guy was flirting with you. A bit too much for my liking, that’s all.” Paul tickled Richard side, leading him down a few steps onto the beach towards the bar where all the sound was coming from.

“Really? You got jealous?” Richard laughed, letting his laugh die in Paul’s hair as he nuzzled into it.

“Yeah, it surprised even me. I don’t usually mind it.” Paul snorted.

“Don’t worry. I like it when you’re possessive.” Richard moved his mouth lower, till it rested against Paul’s ear. Then, his whisper turned into a growl. “It’s actually pretty hot. Now I don’t know how long I’ll be able to stay here.”

And back was the hot red feeling in his abdomen. Paul almost hated how responsive his body had become in the past few months, Richard only needed a couple of words or a small gesture and suddenly his dick would decide it needs all of his blood. Still, he wanted to show the merman how a band sounds in real life, not just in records or on the TV. So he snickered, nudged Richard with his head to get some space between them and quickened his pace, heading to the already starting performance.

By the time they had arrived, there were already small groups of people standing nearby, watching the group perform. They were set in one of the many beach bars, with the patrons watching them from the wooden bar with a few individuals in front of them, dancing on the rickety floor, drowned in the colourful lights hanging off the ceiling. The band, Paul immediately recognized, played a mix of cover songs of old rock classics and apparently their own stuff, as their female vocalist later announced. The man with his bass helped her out from time to time, joining her signing as another young man, not probably even an adult, jumped around with his guitar. There was another man behind the drums; he had his hair tied at the nape of his neck, his ponytail swinging to the rhythm with him.

Paul pointed out all the roles to Richard, whispering everything he knew and thought the merman would find interesting to him, occasionally pointing his finger out. Though he doubted that Richard was even listening to him; he had his eyes stuck to the band, barely blinking as he took all of it in. Paul could feel him puff his chest every time one of them began to sing and soon enough, Richard’s body started to move with the rhythm too. At first, Paul could feel him flex his muscles with the rhythm but then he saw the merman was bobbing his head too, letting his entire body follow.

Taking a step back, Paul looked at his lover, letting only his hand gently rest on his back. Richard managed to spare him a glance and as soon as their eyes met he grinned, till all his crow’s feet were visible and his lips pulled back to show off his toothy grin. The merman leaned in, anchoring one of his arms around Paul’s neck, letting his thumb stroke Paul’s jaw.

“I love this so much, thank you!” He shouted in Paul’s ear. And before Paul could answer him, Richard turned his head with his hand and leaned in, crushing their lips together. Paul just hummed in response and snaked his arms around the merman, dragging him closer to him and away into the nearest available shadow to give them some privacy. He felt like a teen again; here he was in an unknown bar, in the shadows, making out while a band was playing their own cover of _Highway to Hell_. Perfect. Richard had him cornered and used all of his height to lean onto him, boxing him away from the rest of the world. He also felt his thumbs playing with his earrings, grabbing onto them, tugging them and quickly driving Paul crazy.

When Paul’s hands fell down and squeezed the merman’s ass hard, Richard left his mouth alone, letting his rest in the crook of Paul’s neck instead. He licked at Paul’s jumping tendons and when he pressed his body completely into him, he had to chuckle at the bulge in Paul’s pants. Not that he had it any different.

“Seems like live music and you are a dangerous combination for me, huh?” Richard chuckled, slowly leaning away to look into Paul’s eyes.

“If I knew that I’d take you to see one much sooner,” Paul snorted and let his hands slips away from Richard’s ass, “I think it’s time for us to disappear. Staying here any longer is a not an option for me.”

Richard bit his lip to stop his grin. “A wonderful idea.” He grabbed Paul’s hand and led them out, waiting for Paul to take the lead and drag him back to their hotel room.

Paul was glad that Richard agreed. As much as he liked listening to a live band, his dick needed more attention. Plus, the heavy clouds that had gathered above them and quickened the process of the sunset didn’t promise a warm evening either. The wind kept picking up, ruffling the small plastic bag with their groceries, warning them of a possible storm.

When they got into their room, Richard opened their windows to peak outside once more. He smiled when he could still faintly hear the music from the beach, the vibrations from the drums and bass carrying across the bay. He was then surprised by a body leaning into him; Paul didn’t waste any time and undressed completely, pressing himself into the merman, his hands possessively clawing at the shirt’s buttons.

“I thought we came here for a reason,” he growled into Richard’s shoulder, tugging the button-up off his body. He immediately raked his fingers across Richard’s belly and anchored them on his pecs, shamelessly squeezing them.

Richard let himself be undressed, impressed by how quickly Paul’s deft fingers dealt with the button and the fly of his zipper on his jean shorts. He took them off together with his briefs and let himself be pulled closer to once again feel Paul’s body on his. And when he felt how Paul pushed his dick between his ass cheeks to lazily hump his backside, Richard arched his back and grabbed Paul by his own ass, pushing him even closer.

“Ah, fuck. Shit,” Richard moaned, his head turning to the side and seeking Paul’s mouth. The smaller man stopped sucking and licking at his neck and leaned towards Richard’s mouth, his tongue meeting the merman sooner than his lips. They more licked than kissed each other, both too lost in the pleasure they surrounded themselves in. Paul let his hand slip down the merman’s torso and let his right hand encircle Richard’s dick, squeezing the base hard enough to render him breathless. Once Richard finally stopped attacking Paul’s mouth the smaller man cupped his balls instead and started massaging them, smiling and nudging Richard’s nose with his own.

“Get on the fucking bed,” he rasped out, helping Richard from the window and pushing him onto the bed. Richard laughed as he fell, turning mid-air around to fall on his back, letting his hands splay above his head.

Paul quickly fished out two items out of the plastic bag and threw them on Richard’s belly. “Sit up.” He ordered as he kneeled in front of him and took the smaller box into his hands. Before he opened it, he sighed and sobered up a bit, looking into Richard’s eyes. “Do you want to go all the way? We don’t have to, y’know.”

It took a moment for Richard’s brain to register what Paul had asked him but as soon as he processed the words he smirked and brought the smaller man down for a brief kiss, calming his worry down. “Of course. Do whatever you _fucking_ want.” He nudged him away and began watching how Paul opened the small box, taking out even smaller packet and ripping it open.

“Well then. I’ll try to make it comfortable as much as I can.” Paul wiggled his eyebrows and took out the condom and started putting it on.

“That’s the condom, huh?” Richard smirked and got up to his knees to nip at Paul’s lips. “You know you can’t get me pregnant, right?”

“It’s gonna be more comfortable for you, you idiot. Let’s try it out and then I can take it off.” Paul rolled his eyes and snorted as Richard had to immediately touch the alien texture. “Open the second box for me.” Paul got up and circled the merman, getting comfortable behind him. He also picked up a pillow from the headboard and threw it in front of Richard.

Paul was actually getting a bit impatient, he knew that this theoretical first time for the merman should be done probably more carefully, but if he took any more time with the prep, his balls would not only turn blue but also fall off. He snatched the small bottle of lube from Richard’s hands and poured a generous amount into his right palm, not minding that some of it fell on the merman’s ass.

“Get on your hands and knees.” Paul mumbled as he let his hand slip between Richard’s cheeks. The merman hissed and jerked forward as he felt the cold liquid run down his crack and down his taint. Paul may have poured a little bit too much, though it was not something they wouldn’t be used to; Richard managed to produce twice as much with just one pump of his mermaidish dick. Paul grabbed him by his shoulder and forced him to get back into his original position. At first, he let his finger idly stroke over Richard’s hole and when he felt Richard’s muscles relaxing in his shoulders, he let his middle finger slip in, sighing in pure delight of how the tight muscles squeezed around his finger. He didn’t waste any time, seeing that the merman didn’t utter any protests and actually pushed into his finger he soon added his index one, letting them pump in and out, curling them up whenever he was deep inside with them in search of Richard’s prostate.

It didn’t take long, once the merman moans multiplied, with pleas to continue and be rougher, and once he started pushing into his fingers, Paul knew he literally hit the spot. He added his ring finger and started to rhythmically pump in and out, to quicken the prep as much as possible. And when he heard that Richard’s moans turned into impatient ones, he withdrew his fingers and squeezed out one last dollop of the lube onto his cock before positioning himself behind Richard.

The merman in front of him fell onto his elbows and had his hands clasped together, letting his head rest on top of his forearms. His knees were apart and he had his ass up in the air, his hole flexing with every shallow breath he took. Paul dug his fingers into his ass cheeks and spread them, breathlessly chuckling at the helpless moan coming from somewhere below. And before he decided to finally push his cock in, Paul bent down and grabbed Richard’s dick with his hand, lightly jerking it with the residue of the lube while he bent down and pushed his tongue inside of Richard, twisting it around and sucking at the merman’s relaxed hole. He couldn’t do it for long though, because just as he twisted his fist around Richard’s cockhead and licked over and in his asshole, the merman cried out and pushed his hips violently down, almost flattening himself into the bedcovers.

“Paul! Please!” He groaned, his eyes tightly shut as he tried to get back onto his knees. “Fucking stop teasing me, I can’t hold myself that long!”

“Fine.” Paul smiled and hooked his left arm around Richard’s belly to bring him back up. He finally made himself comfortable between the merman’s legs and then used his hand to hold Richard’s ass in place as he guided himself in. Richard took him in one smooth motion, wailing in pleasure into the blankets below him and pushing his ass to meet Paul’s tempo. Loosing any inhibition, Paul started with quick short thrusts, holding his lover’s ass in place by his hands. Sweat was running down his torso, down to his navel- the same was for his brow; he didn’t mind the sweat though, he barely registered anything else outside the intense pleasure building in his abdomen. Not even how the merman was laying on his chest now with his ass in the air and how his right hand wound around his cock, jerking it with every pump of Paul’s hips.

As he felt he was getting closer, Paul let go of Richard’s hips and leaned over him, letting his weight fall onto the merman. He stopped for a short moment, only to push Richard’s legs together and straddle him from behind. It was difficult to focus on any other movement; Richard kept subconsciously pushing his ass up and down, to fuck into his own hand and with every slight rise of his hips he bumped into his lover’s oversensitive cock. Paul put his weight onto one of his elbows and guided himself into Richard again. The switch in the position helped him to fuck into Richard without any proper rhythm, the animalistic force behind his need to fuck quickly took over, letting Paul focus only on chasing his approaching orgasm.

He managed to pound into Richard for another minute before his muscles locked in and he came with a howl between Richard’s shoulder blades. He bit into the merman’s shoulder to keep quiet but the waves of pleasure, Richard’s still flexing ass and moving hips were turning him delirious. It hurt and felt _so good_ at the same time. He managed to stay inside Richard and pump into him till he felt Richard’s ass tighten around him, the merman’s moans turning into dry rasps as he came too, spilling in his hand under them. Paul pulled out and collapsed next to his lover, closing his eyes as Richard’s body still shook from his own orgasm, his hips still humping into the empty air above him.

When Paul opened his eyes, the merman was already quiet, his head turned to his side and resting on his forearm as his other arm sneaked onto Paul’s belly to grasp his hand. It was difficult to keep his eyes open; he suddenly felt like each of his limb weighted over a ton, all he wanted at the moment was to fall asleep. But the lube, sweat, and their other bodily fluids stained not only them, but the sheets as well and if he wanted to sleep comfortably, they both had to get up. Plus the cold stormy air coming from the windows would both leave them with a cold.

“We gotta get up.” Paul whispered, his breath finally back to normal.

The merman groaned and let out a proper sentence only after a few deeper breaths, “I don’t think I’ll be even able to walk.”

Paul managed to sit up and looked over at his lover; the sheets under him were ruined, he was sweaty all over and the blankets his head was on were full of his drool. Oh he definitely needed a shower. He got up with a groan and grabbed the merman by his arms, tugging him to the edge of the bed. “C’mon.”

“Fine.” Richard sighed into the bed and slowly sat up, yawning in the process. “You’re the worst.”

“Mhmm. Totally.” Paul chuckled as he hoisted him up into his arms, stealing a gentle kiss and feeling the merman melt into his arms. “Let’s go.”


	12. Chapter 12

To get the merman into the shower’s cubicle was a task much more difficult than the fucking itself. Once Paul managed to detangle himself from the merman, it took him all the effort he could muster to push him forward into their bathroom; he wouldn’t insist on it so hard but Richard’s belly and legs were stained and if the merman wanted to wake up fresh, he needed to wash his ass. And the rest of his body too. Paul closed the glass door behind them and turned the knobs, letting them be showered by a warm stream from above.

Thankfully, once the merman felt the water on his skin he became more alive, maybe even too alive for Paul’s tired taste. At least he didn’t need to stress himself with his own body, Richard washed his hair and then his own, cursing a bit when the shampoo got into his eyes. Paul chuckled and raised his arms to sweep away any foam from Richard’s face, kissing his wet lips once he got rid of the shampoo. He then helped the merman with the shower gel, gently letting his fingers disappear between the merman’s cheeks and even lower to his thighs.

“Oh, stop it,” Paul mumbled when he was kneeling in front of Richard, taking care of the rest of his thighs and crotch. As he brushed over his flaccid dick he immediately felt it twitch, bumping into his fingers. He flicked it off and stood up, covering himself in a generous amount of the gel as well, not prolonging their unplanned showering. Once they were both clean, Paul threw a towel at Richard and wrapped his around his waist and walked back into the bedroom towards the bed.

“Dry yourself up, I’m gonna change the sheets. Well, as much as I can.” He winked at the smirking merman and started stripping the bed of its soiled sheets.

Richard didn’t rush anywhere, he slowly dried the water from his hair, getting back to his opened window to let the cold breeze from outside to cool him down. He dragged the towel across his face and down his torso, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness outside. He could still faintly hear the music from the bar, though having their hotel at the outskirts of the city, the only thing that could be heard was the rhythmic beat of the drums and bass. The beach in front of their room was completely abandoned, with not a single soul present. The sea was a bit wilder, the wind kept combing the waves over each other, throwing the water onto the beach much further than usual; the water itself was black as the darkest ink, reflecting only the artificial lights of the city and nothing more.

“We’ll have to share a blanket, but that shouldn’t be a problem, right?” Paul asked from behind, disturbing Richard’s staring into nothingness. “Hello? Something caught your eye?” Paul joked as he got closer and wrapped their bodies in the clean blanket, cocooning Richard into a warm hug.

“Y-yeah.” Paul perked up in alarm at Richard’s whisper. “Look over there, someone’s swimming there.”

“At this time of the night? In this weather?” Paul focused onto the sea, trying to find the person Richard was pointing on.

“I think that’s someone from my school.” Richard suddenly freed himself from the hug and started searching for his swimming trunks.

“What? What would they be doing here? Richard, that’s stupid.” Paul nervously laughed and turned around to watch the merman put on his clothes. “Richard, I can’t see anybody in there, you’re probably just tired.”

“You just don’t know where to look. The waves break repeatedly, at irregular places. And the breaks appear in a line of someone swimming; you can even see the shine from the scales if you focus on the right place!” Richard put on his spare shirt, leaving the room with a quick kiss on Paul’s cheek. “I’ll be back, I swear!”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, where did the energy come from.” Paul annoyingly looked at the freshly made bed and groaned, going to the dresser as well. Once he realized that the merman will try to get as close as he can in the water, he sped up his tempo; the idiot could barely swim and would drown before he could find his supposed schoolmate.

Five minutes later, he was running around the hotel towards the beach, desperately trying to find the merman. He got across the sandy strip in a matter of seconds, his tempo quickening when he saw Richard already in the cold water to his waist. He cursed, took off his shirt and sandals and waddled into it too, hating the nipping around his shins. He barely got the water above his knees when he heard hushed shouts and saw that Richard had his arm extended to him with his palm raised up, signalling him to stop in his advances. He didn’t like letting Richard in the deeper water alone, but by the urgency in the merman’s gestures, he stopped nonetheless and watched him in worry.

Richard was hurriedly talking to someone. Paul couldn’t still see who it was, but then heard a female voice answering back, the language nothing like anything he yet heard from the merman. It was melodic and colourful, just a tiny step away from turning into singing itself. And then after a minute or so, he saw a tail hitting the water surface, before disappearing below it, only to reappear right in front of Richard with the owner herself.

“Richard?” He stood still, hoping he won’t scare the mermaid off.

Richard whipped his head to him and smiled, holding the woman with one hand and gesturing for him to get closer with the other. Paul slowly moved forward, letting the cold water engulf him, till he stood next to Richard. The water was splashing against his torso with the wind throwing droplets of the salt water into his face.

“Ah hello.” Paul shyly greeted, immediately huddling to Richard for warmth.

“Hello Paul.” The mermaid briefly smiled at him, her face turning into a serious one in a second.

When Richard saw Paul’s confused face, he chuckled and leant down, whispering into his ear, “She’s one of the girls that Till saved, remember?”

“Oh. Oh! Yeah, now I remember!” PauL relaxed a bit, leaning into Richard’s shoulder. “What’s up? And more importantly, how did you find us?”

“We were actually looking for you, my Mate and I,” she said, her eyes frantic and all over Richard, “holy hell, what had happened to you, _Richard_?”

“What do you mean?” The merman asked, genuinely confused.

“You’ve got legs! How?!” She switched back to that singsong-y language.

“Ah.” Richard’s smile faltered, quickly trying to come up with a sensible lie. He had Maria’s warnings burned into his head; he did not want to risk anyone’s life at all. At least Doom told him the truth when he promised not to tell anyone, she seemed clueless about his new status. And being younger than him meant that the elders _thankfully_ kept much more information from her and her Mate.

“How did that happen? Were you cursed? Is it the elders fault?” She continued, not giving him any space for an answer.

“No, no, no.” Richard raised his hands to calm her down, stopping her ongoing questions. “It’s, y’know, because I decided that Paul’s my Mate. So this happened some time ago. Nothing more, I swear. Is this why you were trying to find me?”

Richard was glad when she looked like she had accepted his gullible lie as the truth; he had no strength to come up with more sensible lies to tell her. But seeing she did not probe deeper into it and only nodded to herself to close up that chapter, he immediately knew that something more severe was about to come. And he was right.

“We can’t find _him_ , Richard. We knew he spend a lot of his time at the fishery with you, to look after you but he was not there. A couple of us started to look for him, in case he got abducted.”

Once again, Richard could feel his heart stop. He wasn’t afraid of Doom getting abducted, he had no doubt the merman was careful and strong enough to evade any danger; the only thing that could subconsciously draw him in were the caves.

“Are you sure he just didn’t go hunting or something?” Richard stumbled over the words, his own hold on Paul getting tense.

Said man was confusingly switching his gaze from the mermaid to Richard, trying to decipher what they were talking about; the mentioning of his name and their hurried and strained tones made him unnerved. He certainly did not expect the mood to change so quickly, he felt his own stomach to clench in suspense as he waited for the two of them to finish talking.

“Our people went to check all the usual places and he was not there. And since he was spending so much time with you, we thought you’d know. But you weren’t there either.” She moved her hands about pointing towards the open sea and to all the other directions around them. “And then I find you like this, with legs, on the dryland. Seriously, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, you don’t have to worry about me.” He leaned to Paul for a second and nuzzled his hair with his cheek, letting Paul’s scent calm him down a bit. “I couldn’t be happier. I can look for _Doom_ too, I have a few guesses where he could be.”

“You know where he could be? We could meet there and-“

“No, we can’t.” Richard stopped her, the image of more mermaids lost in the caves absolutely terrified him. “It’s not necessary, okay? Just go and stay near the fishery, you know you can trust Paul and Till, they won’t hurt you.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, laying her hand on his shoulder to stroke it.

“Yes, just stay near the fishery. Now go, before any other humans can see you.”

“Good luck.” She took a deep breath and nodded, sparing one last smile for Paul before disappearing into the inky water, back into the depths.

There was a moment where both men stood in the dark together in the water, the coldness numbing their skin all over. Only after a few more seconds Paul quickly shook his head and looked up at Richard, who was nibbling his bottom lip in worry. He may have not understood what they were talking about, but he could easily deduce from their tones and Richard’s new mood that it was nothing good.

“Did something happen?” He turned to face the merman, putting both of his hands on Richard shoulders to rub small circles on them.

“Yeah,” the merman whispered, finally moving his eyes from the horizon to Paul, “We have to get out of here. Now.”

“Why?”

“Doom went to the caves.”

…

Paul barely had any time to ask any questions. The merman stormed out of the water and in a couple of quick strides he disappeared inside the hotel, not waiting for the other man. And when Paul caught up with him, half of his clothes was already packed (meaning carelessly stuffed into their bags, with Richard stuffing their toiletries on top of the mess). Paul was too tired to argue with the merman, his mind still tried to make sense of Doom trying his luck and going for the caves as well. After all, he didn’t have a proper reason like Richard did. A row of Goosebumps ran down his neck when he remembered the old woman’s warning. _No matter how strong one’s mind can be, once the secret is revealed, they will follow._ These words together with Richard’s panicked running around gave Paul completely clear signals of the situation’s severity. He managed to help with the final packing and with a final look over the room they left it and went for their car.

Even though they were geographically closer to the caves than if they had to travel from the fishery, it would take them almost about the same time to get there; the road was squeezing through valleys and rocks, sometimes disappearing into a tunnel, sometimes emerging onto a bridge over a chasm. A beautiful scenery for a daytime travel but for fast driving after a midnight it was a nightmare. As they final got onto this main road snaking around the island, Paul finally let out a deep breath and loosened the grip on the steering wheel, letting his eyes linger on Richard for a moment. The merman was barely moving, his eyes glued towards the darkness in front of them, his mouth cupped by his arm which he rested by his elbow on the car door.

“Shouldn’t I call Till first? He could know more. Maybe Doom’s there with him somewhere.”

“He went to the caves,” Richard mumbled, his eyes still not moving and not acknowledging Paul’s question.

“I’m gonna call him,” sighed Paul and put his phone on a speaker, calling his friend. Three long rings and the man thankfully answered.

“What’s up?”

“Hey Till, I know it’s late but is Doom there with you?” Paul asked, trying to cover his nervousness with a soft laugh.

“Uh, no? He returned to his school like every night, yeah?”

Paul could see and hear how Richard closed his eyes and sharply inhaled. He hated that their fears were coming true, it all started to click together. He had hoped that the other merman would have enough sense to avoid the place, but it sounded like they had no such luck like that. He tried to keep his poker-face to support Richard, but deep inside he was trying to hold onto any hope he had left that the merman did not get lured into the caves and got himself hurt. He would not be able to look Richard in the eyes again; if they didn’t have the radio on on that fateful day, none of this would’ve happened.

“Well,” Paul laughed, his tone now full of panic, “One of the girls visited us and they can’t find him either. And by the information we got, he probably swam to the caves.”

There was a pregnant pause. “What?! Why?”

“It’s what the granny had told us when we returned the diary. She recognized that Richard is not human and then gave us some advices.” Paul looked once again at the merman. “Look, we’re already on our way there and it’d be wonderful if you could get there too.”

“Okay, okay. I can do that. I’ll take the boat, it should be a bit quicker. Though the sea might still be a bit stormy.”

“Stormy? Why?” Paul asked, finally seeing from the corner of his eyes Richard move. The merman jerked his head towards the phone, glaring at it instead.

“There was a storm not long ago, it barely missed you guys, if you were in the north.”

“Oh God dammit!” Paul cursed, speeding up on the abandoned road.

“So,” Till drawled out the word, “Should I really go? I’m not really into midnight racing across the sea.”

“Yes! God! Meet us there, please.” Paul’s voice turned desperate. “We need to help him.”

“Fine, okay.” Till tried to sound as soothing as possible. “I’ll meet you guys there. See you soon.”

“Thank you.” Paul ended the call and with a deep sigh relaxed (or at least tried to do so) into his seat. He kept quiet and let his thoughts run wild. He hoped he would have an uninterrupted week or two just for himself and the merman, but it looked like it wasn’t something that the higher powers had prepared for him. Paul wasn’t a religious man just for the reason that if any all-powerful being existed, he would have strangled it by now. And by looking over at his lover, he was sure that Richard had similar thoughts. The merman forcefully rubbed at his eyes and ruffled his hair, letting out a loud growl of frustration out.

“Fucking hell! Why does this have to happen to me?” The merman hissed, letting out a couple of colourful curses in his own language right after.

“Hey!” Paul said, his voice barely above a whisper, “We’re gonna be alright. Doom’s gonna be alright, don’t worry.” He let the steering wheel go with his right hand and rested it on Richard’s thigh to calm him down.

“How do you know that? You don’t know him! Or the place! What if something has already happened to him?” Richard inhaled sharply, his eyes not moving from the road in front of them. “It’s all my fucking fault. If I weren’t so reckless everything’d be fine. I’m a goddamn dis-“

“-Richard!” Paul let go of his attempt at sounding soothing. “None of this is your fault, okay? Stop blaming yourself. You cannot blame yourself for something that’s apparently innate for you and your people.”

“But if I weren’t so stupid and didn’t want him everywhere with me he wouldn’t know about it!”

When Paul heard Richard starting to hyperventilate, and curse, he made a quick stop at the side of the road, letting the engine run while he turned his entire upper body to the merman. They were both tense, but Richard’s panic began to grow into something dangerous as he kept nervously tugging at his skin, not stopping with cursing himself in all languages he knew.

“Hey,” Paul’s voice was strong and determined, “Look at me.” He took the merman’s face into his hands and turned him towards himself, waiting for his eye contact to continue.

“We’re on our way, there’s not much more we can do, okay? You worrying yourself to death won’t help us either.” Paul rested his brow against Richard’s, stroking the merman’s hair behind his ears. “Preserve your energy for the caves. Do it for me and Doom, please.”

He left a gentle kiss upon the merman’s lips and leaned back into his seat, letting his right hand rest over Richard’s and waited for the merman’s reaction. Said merman was trying to calm his breathing; his exhales were still hitched and his eyes frantic but at least his body was not twitching anymore and his hands exchanged his skin for the hem of his shirt.

“Okay,” the merman sighed, “Okay, I’ll try.” His head hit the car’s headrest as he closed his eyes to focus on his breathing. “Just drive, please.”

Paul didn’t verbally answer him. Squeezing his own hand one last time in support he let go and focused on the road again, pulling the car back on its track. They still had a couple of hours in front of them and if he was supposed to be focused on the driving, he needed all the quiet in the world for it- the quiet radio was enough to keep his mind in line and awake. Plus, he had to think over all the possible outcomes that they could arrive to. Is Doom really going to be there? Is he going to be alright? What if he really gets gravely hurt? Paul was afraid of Richard’s reaction to that, he prayed that Richard wouldn’t be one of those people that could die of grief; his own heart jumped at the terrifying thought. At best he hoped they won’t find him at all and all of it is just going to be one big false alarm.

…

Arriving in the middle of the night to the place felt like finding yourself in the middle of a horror movie. It was cold, the ground was wet and the moon barely shined through the scattered clouds in the sky. Paul parked the car in the same spot when he was there the last time; just a couple of meters away from the entrance with the headlights shining onto one of the rock slates. Once he took the car key out of the ignition, he looked at Richard who was in the process of detangling his body out of the seatbelt.

“Whoa, slow down.” Paul grabbed him by his arm and sat him back into his seat. “Let’s first call Till, okay?”

Richard didn’t answer him, he just sat back down and rigidly stared in front of himself at the artificially illuminated nature outside. A few moments later he could hear the beeping of Paul’s phone’s speaker.

“Yeah?!” Till shouted a moment later, his voice deafened by the sound of a running engine.

“We’re here, where are you?” Paul asked, watching the merman from the corner of his eye for any unexpected movement.

“I should be at the nearest beach in about ten minutes. At least according to the GPS,” Till shouted over the noise of the boat, “It’s just on the right side of the caves, it’s not gonna take me long!”

“Okay.” Paul nodded to himself and sparred Richard a quick glance. “Okay. I’ll meet you there. I hope you took some ropes with you.”

“Yeah I did.”

“Good. See you soon.” He didn’t wait for Till’s answer, instead, he opened his door and looked over at the merman who took it as a clue to get out as well.

“Richard, stay here please. I don’t know what the terrain looks like towards the beach.”

“Yeah and?”

“It’ll be faster if I go alone, you can stay in the car, I’ll be right back.” Paul patted his thigh and stepped out, fishing out a flashlight out of the car’s door.

“Fine. But please hurry up.” Richard’s anxiety returned into his voice; even though they still had to make their way within, the place already had an effect on the merman. And having his friend possibly lost somewhere in there too didn’t help the situation either.

Paul nodded and closed the door, leaving the radio play for the merman. As he was turning away from the car he raised his hand as an afterthought and pressed a button on the car keys, locking the merman in the car. Just to be safe. He could theoretically open it from the inside but luckily, Richard didn’t know how to. And with that he started jogging back the way they had arrived, looking for any path that would lead down towards the shore. Though Paul’s own impatience didn’t give him that satisfaction; once he could hear the faint sound of Till’s boat he gave up and started walking straight towards the shore, carefully climbing over boulders, jumping over thorny bushes and evading any branches in his way. Once he was far enough to see through the trees towards the shore, he spotted Till’s boat and the lights it emitted onto the shore, drowning the lonely strip of pebbles in blinding light.

“Till!” He shouted once he ran out of the trees, not hearing the roaring sound of the engine anymore.

“Coming!” He could hear the other man’s voice coming from the boat. Right after that he spotted Till himself with a headlight on and a bunch of ropes thrown over his shoulders. Without any other doubts Till jumped into the water and swam towards the shore, meeting Paul not even a minute later.

“I swear if all of this is a giant prank I’m gonna drown the both of you.” Till tried to mask his own trepidation by keeping his voice calm and welcoming. He crawled out of the sea, automatically throwing one of the ropes onto his friend and embracing him in a hug. “Hey, it’s good to see you’re safe.”

“Yeah. We gotta hurry though. I’ve locked Richard in the car. I don’t want him to lose his mind in there.”

“Well, lead the way.” Till snickered, extending his arm towards the trees.

Returning back was a bit more difficult but not impossible; once Till understood that they just need to go up till they hit the road again, he took lead and managed to quickly and efficiently get them back towards the car. Richard was still sitting inside, with his arms crossed and his fingers drumming impatiently against his biceps. If the situation wasn’t so serious, Paul would let him sit there for a moment or two longer, just to see how much the merman would be able to take. But now, he jogged towards the passenger door and opened it with his keys, letting Richard out and closing the car behind him.

“That was very rude, y’know,” the merman said as he stretched his arms in the air.

“Yeah, sorry,” Paul mumbled as he tried to hide his disappearing smirk, “Let’s go, and let’s hope I still remember the way back.”

“I took a picture of the diary’s pages before you guys took it.” Till fished out a waterproof packet and took out his phone. “Just to be sure.”

“Thank you.” Richard gripped his shoulder in gratitude and followed Paul into the bushes towards the caves.

They agreed that Paul would go first, with Till’s phone in his hand with Richard Right behind, being belayed by Till from behind. It took only one fleeting look from Paul to Till for the bigger man to understand that he must watch over the merman; not only could he trip and fall in the dark, but he could also get swayed by the atmosphere within the cave system. They managed to abseil down quite quickly and thanks to Paul’s knowledge, the natural labyrinth didn’t look so scary anymore. Or at least as long as they stayed away from the many ponds and their skeleton-filled bottoms.

“Just one more turn and we’ll be there,” Paul whispered into the dark, waiting for the two men to catch up on him. Richard was becoming more and more anxious and at one point Till contemplated if he should tie the merman to himself just to be safe. Richard assured him multiple times that it’s not necessary, that he feels fine – although his frantic eyes skipping from one side to the other undermined any statement he made; he definitely didn’t look okay. And be it the place itself or just the worry over his friend; he started to look like he was moving his body on autopilot, his spirit wandering somewhere else.

Paul took yet another turn and disappeared behind a corner. The two other men caught up with him quickly, _too quickly_. Richard accidentally stumbled into the smaller man who had frozen in his place, his flashlight pointed in front of him into the spacious cavern at the end of the tunnel.

“Why did you st-“ Till’s voice died out behind them as he followed their gaze into the cone of the solitary light in front of them.

Just a couple of meters in front of them was the cave where Paul found Richard a coupe of days ago and now, there was another new body. Another _human_ looking body, bruised all over, bleeding and unconscious. They could recognize those brown curls everywhere. And the face with its strong features hiding under them was unmistakable too.

“ _Oh shit_.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me start with an apology ^^"  
> I'm sorry I stopped uploading for two months straight; life got busy and I didn't have the time nor the strength to write. Whoops.  
> BUT! The lovely [Cynoodn](https://cynoodn.tumblr.com/post/642848578534096896/this-was-for-naraism-it-still-is-but-i) drew a wonderful fanart of Doom in the meanwhile, so I'm infinitely grateful that you guys still follow this story ♡

The deafening silence was broken by Till’s sharp inhale. He was the only one who managed to get rid of the shock and marched forward, his muscles tense with every step he took and every jump made over a boulder.

“Doom!” His voice managed to bring back the other two men back to reality; Richard immediately wanted to follow Till but with the first stumble he stopped and desperately looked at Paul, his hand waiting for support.

Once Paul’s teeth released his bottom lip, he grabbed the merman by his bicep and helped him down to the cave, making sure that Richard wouldn’t faceplant into the hard wet ground. And also that he wouldn’t do anything rash, he could see how the merman’s behaviour changed once more since they had entered the caves, and it was not only because of Doom’s situation. Richard’s eyes were skipping between the hurt merman and the water; there was still a bit of the moonlight, but the water was calm and shimmery, like the sky itself. Whenever Paul tried to get his attention, Richard wouldn’t respond and instead would grip Paul’s hand harder and drag him to anything that would resemble a sparkling body of water. And on the top of it all, he would began to occasionally ramble to himself, his words foreign and jumping from one language to another.

Till was already kneeling in front of the unconscious merman when the two of them got to him; he rolled Doom slowly onto his back and was cradling Doom’s head, letting his finger comb his curls to the side. The hair was wet, and every time Till brought his hand back it returned stained, warm blood slowly trickling down his fingers and across his palms. He parted the hair and found a long gash above his right ear, the skin split almost to the bone.

“Shit,” Till hissed as he let his eyes travel over the rest of the merman’s body. Paul managed to kneel on the other side and was frantically looking from one bruise to another, trying to focus on the most severe one.

Fishing a small flashlight out of his pocket, Till once again grabbed Doom’s face and angled it to himself, letting his thumb and forefinger gently grab his eyelid to open it. He felt his heart clench when Doom’s iris did not react to the harsh light, and neither did his other eye.

“C’mon now.” When Paul saw Till’s frantic movements, he looked over just managed to witness Doom’s unresponsiveness.

“We gotta get him out of here,” Paul hissed as he let Till’s phone shine over the merman’s body. “Quick.”

“Yeah.” Till’s voice lost any colour it had left, leaving it cold and serious. He let his eyes linger for a moment on Doom’s unconscious face, deciding what to do. He knew that they had to definitely wake up Flake, he just didn’t know if they should take the car or the boat. The latter might get to him a bit faster, but then they would need a car or an ambulance to get to the hospital, which would be easier if they just took the pickup, even if there’s not enough space for them. He was about to ask Paul to help him pick up the merman when he heard a shout.

“Richard, stop!”

Said merman stood frozen on the edge of the pool, his eyes wide and his breathing uneven. Paul was slowly inching towards him, his arms spread and one of them extended in front of him towards the merman who looked like he was about to faint; he was pale, hyperventilating and had sweat running down his temples.

“Come here, please,” Paul soothed his voice, trying to calm Richard down, “It’s gonna be alright, come here.”

“I gotta- I have to-“ Richard slurred, his head whipping to the pond and back.

Paul used the moment to get closer and before the merman could realize what was happening, he was already in a tight embrace and dragged away, back towards the entrance. Paul looked over at Till, who was gently cradling Doom’s upper body and by the thoughtful expression in his face, also pondering the best way of picking the merman up without hurting him even more.

“Let me go!” Richard whipped his head around in panic, almost knocking out Paul’s teeth in the process. He was completely lost; he felt the pull of the caves since they had arrived but he hoped that he’d be able to stay rational and focus on Doom’s rescue. However, the deeper they went the less he could control his body, as if his consciousness got pushed away by the strong, almost magnetic pull by the inside of the labyrinth and he could only watch what his body was doing from behind a glass wall. He tried to fight it, he tried to call for help, but the sight of his unconscious friend and the raw feeling coming from the depths of the water completely overtook him, almost drowning him in the inky water if it wasn’t for Paul’s quick reflexes.

When Till saw how much work Paul had with the other merman, he released the breath he was holding and put his arms under Doom, picking him up in one smooth motion; he had one arm under his knees while the other one embraced his back, letting the merman’s bleeding head rest on his shoulder. He would’ve preferred if he had support by the other two from behind and in front of him, but Richard was still delirious enough to keep Paul busy. He let them to walk in front of him, lighting the ground below them to at least make sure he won’t stumble over a rock and hurt Doom even more.

He looked down and tried to asses the damage on his body; not only was the wound on his head still bleeding, but his bruised body looked even more hurt in the dim light than before. His skin was clammy and cold to the touch and Till hoped that they did not come too late for him; he could still feel the faint weak heartbeat and weak breathing which gave him a bit of hope, though he mentally prayed that those were not his final breaths. Till felt uneasy that he couldn’t let his hand stay by Doom’s wrist, the pumping blood within his veins kept from losing his posture, as the merman’s shallow uneven breathing had the exact opposite effect, adding only more stress onto the entire situation.

When they crawled out of the entrance and Richard sharply inhaled the fresh night air, Paul finally released his grip; he could feel how the merman’s muscles released some of their tension and how he stopped making the trek back up difficult for the both of them. Richard turned around to stare at the hurt merman, his mind finally clear enough to see properly what had happened to him. He kept glancing worriedly at his injuries, stumbling across the bushes leading to the car and refusing to leave Doom’s side.

“How are we going to do this? We can’t all fit inside.” Paul finally broke the silence, turning to the guys as soon as he unlocked the pickup to let the headlights give them more light.

I’ll sit in the trunk with Doom, if you won’t take any sharp turns we’ll be okay,” Till nodded towards the open back of the pickup, “I can secure him there and keep an eye on him.”

“Are you sure?” Paul didn’t wait for Till’s answer, one look towards the injured merman and he was already making his way over to the back to open the trunk’s door, “shit, fuck, alright. Let’s do this.”

Meanwhile Richard picked up his bag and threw it into the back towards the men and climbed in as well, taking out his towels and any clothing that could keep his injured friend warm. Once Doom laid on the towels, he scooted closer and put his hoodie over him as an impromptu blanket, his hand immediately travelling to his head to cup his jaw. His thumbs stroked over the merman’s cheeks, creating small circles under his eyes. Till wanted to shoo him away; his fingers were dangerously close to Doom’s gash on the side of his head, a step away from irritating the injury even more, but Richard’s quiet humming and murmuring stopped the bigger man from saying anything. Paul recognized the tone immediately, he heard that intonation only a couple of hours earlier, when Richard was speaking with one of the mermaids; it sounded almost like a lullaby as if Richard was trying to soothe him and Doom at the same time. He thought that he had heard all kinds of languages and nothing could surprise him anymore, but Richard kept proving him wrong; when he was speaking with the girl, he filled his speech with rolled Rs, clicks, and nasalized consonants and now, there was not a single harsh sound, as his voice reminded him of honey slowly dripping into the warmest tea.

Both Paul and Till let him stay there as they grabbed the car’s emergency blankets and wrapped them around the unconscious man, making sure he was both safely strapped in and kept warm at the same time. Paul could feel how Till closed himself behind an emotionless wall; his movements were robotic, his face was devoid of any emotion and his muscles were just a bit too tense as he tested a strap for the third time. Paul slowly let go of the blanket he tucked around the merman and put an arm over Till’s shoulder, squeezing it in reassurance.

“You okay?” he whispered, sparing one glance at the two mermen, “We can always call an ambulance here.”

“No.” Till’s answer was quick. “I’m good. Let’s go.”

Paul watched as Till made himself comfortable next to Doom and twisted one of the free straps around his leg to anchor him down as well. They couldn’t do more, so Paul reached out over the unconscious man and pulled on Richard’s bicep to break him out of his hypnosis. “C’mon Richard, you have to get inside.”

“I don’t want to leave him here alone.” Richard’s voice cracked as he glanced back at the merman.

“You’re not leaving him, you’ll still be able to see him through the back window. And Till will take care of him. Come.” Paul hopped out of the track and extended his arm waiting for the merman to grab it.

After a pause, Richard finally grabbed him and jumped out of the trunk, waiting for Paul to close it and then he moved towards the passenger door, sparing one last look at Doom.

“Should I call Flake or will you do it?” Paul stood in the opened door, one leg already inside the car. It was only logical to call him, as he was the only one who knew who Doom was. And could help them out, should any problems with the authorities arise.

“I’ll do it, just drive straight to his hospital, we could be there within two hours.”

“Okay.” Paul nodded and crawled inside, immediately sticking the keys in the ignition and fastening his seatbelt. He made his way slowly out back onto the main road, checking his mirror every other minute to see if the men in the back are okay. He could see Till on the phone, even hear him how he half-shouted at Flake that they have an emergency and need him present at the hospital. He gradually sped up, seeing as neither Till or Doom weren’t jostled around that much. Plus, Richard was basically glued to the back window, silently keeping an eye on both of them.

He didn’t want to disturb him, the last time he saw Richard so distressed was when he was lying on a beach with his leg stabbed right through, surrounded by other mermaids. So whenever he didn’t have to shift gears he let his hand rest on Richard’s thigh, for his and the merman’s own comfort. He was absolutely tired, the adrenaline was slowly leaving him and focusing on the sometimes still wet road was becoming more and more difficult. Still, he kept driving on. He had to, there was no other possibility and the only comforting thought that kept him focused was that they’re going to the probably safest place on this island; all will be well when they finally meet with Flake.

The ride felt like it had stretched across the entire night. While both of the men in the trunk were safely fastened, Paul always felt like he is going to dump them over the side of the pickup whenever he took a sharp turn or went over a pothole. When the city’s skyline appeared on the dark horizon, he noticed in his mirror that Till was on the phone again, talking to Flake once more. Then, a minute later, Paul’s phone started ringing. Till. He spared a look in the back, seeing Till was already looking inside with his phone next to his ear, waiting for him to pick it up. Since he was unable to open the back window, he answered the phone, putting on a speaker.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve told Flake we’re gonna arrive soon and he told me to drive straight to the emergency entrance, he’ll be waiting there.”

“Okay.”

“Also,” Paul could hear an ironic giggle, “He thinks it’s you who’s injured, I don’t think he’d believe me if I told him the truth.”

“Shit.” Letting out a nasal laugh, Paul looked over at Richard, who finally turned around, his curiosity unable to keep him glued only to Doom’s body; he was taking in the new environment as much as he could in the middle of the night. “Well, he’s in for a surprise.”

“Yeah.” Till then ended the call and bent down to inspect the head injury which he tried to clean with the car’s first aid kit as best as he could without hurting him even more. He was still pretty cold, but Till has been holding his hand almost the entire time and felt comforted by the faint heartbeat under the soft skin. At least it looked like the bleeding had been stopped by the impromptu bandage he put around Doom’s head while they were on the road. He was also glad that they had arrived to the city in the middle of the night; it would be a bit weird if they had to go through the streets with a basically naked, unconscious man in the trunk.

While Till was preparing for the arrival to the hospital, Paul was busy answering the million of questions that have suddenly started pouring out of Richard. Answering how hospitals work was quite easy, the harder questions came after Richard’s panic kept slowly creeping back in as they were approaching their destination.

“What if they discover he’s different? What if they take him away? What if he won’t survive? I can’t leave him alone, Paul!”

“Richard, please, calm down. They will save him and help him. Plus Flake will be overseeing everything so he won’t be alone, okay?”

“But-“

“I’m _sure_ they will make tests first before giving him anything that could potentially hurt him. Don’t worry.” He still could see how Richard nervously played with a pen he found in the passenger’s door, showing him he is far from ‘not worrying’. He grabbed his hand and brought it to his lips, leaving a gentle, lingering kiss. “Trust me, please, it’ll be okay.”

He didn’t let go until they finally arrived to the gates of the complex of buildings. He quickly sat up straighter, looking for the sign of the emergency entrance. There was a thump on the back window and when he looked at it, Paul could see Till pointing towards a side road, leading under the main building. He nodded and drove towards it, his heart once again speeding up, almost painfully so. Soon enough he could see an entrance into the building and next to it Flake dressed in scrubs and a white coat, finishing a cigarette. Paul signalled him by blinking his headlights’ high beams a couple of times and slowed down, stopping next to Flake who turned his back to him to throw away the butt of his cigarette. Before he could turn, Paul managed to switch off the engine and jump out, forgetting about what had Till told him when he called him.

“Jesus!” Flake jumped as he turned around, his eyes landing on Paul. “Wait, what the fuck?!”

His eyes jumped from him to Till in the back, who was busy untying Doom. “What the fuck is going on?” And when he saw Richard circle the pickup and jump into the trunk, he was one step away from fainting, his mouth opening and closing without any words, like a fish out of water.

“Yeah I know.” Till raised his head and spared him a glance. “But you wouldn’t believe us otherwise. So can you please move your ass and help us.”

Once Flake peeked over the side of the trunk, he cursed one more time, his eyes closing in disbelief. Seeing the other merman as well, with legs no less, almost made him leave. Thankfully, the wounds brought him back, his mind securing his sanity behind the doctor’s façade. He took a deep breath and rounded the car, signalling within the hospital’s corridor for help. Once the guys freed Doom, Flake immediately checked his pulse and used his pen flashlight to look into Doom’s eyes. Still no response.

“Shit,” he hissed as he took away the bandages around his head, listening to Till’s rambling about all wounds the merman had. When he saw two men with a stretcher coming to the car he fished out his keys and handed them over to Till.

“Park the car and get into my office, I’ll contact you as soon as I can. And if you ran into any trouble call the head nurse, she already knows you’ll be coming there.”

Till silently nodded and let the men carefully carry the merman onto the stretcher, sparing him one last look as they fastened him to it and went running into the building with Flake right behind them.

“Wait!” Richard shouted, ready to run behind them. He was caught by Till, who’s face was still hidden behind an emotionless wall. “Why can’t we follow?”

“Richard! I told you Flake is going to take care of him. We can get back to him once he is taken care of.” Paul ran up to the merman, cupping his hands around his head and nodding towards Till to let him go. “You just have to wait, that’s all I’m asking of you, please.” To show how genuine his plea was, he stood up on his tiptoes to kiss Richard’s forehead and then let his own forehead rest against his, till he could hear the deep sigh coming from the merman.

“Okay.” He never heard him sound so defeated. Looking into his eyes hurt; they were glassy and turned down, not even being able to look into his.

“I’m gonna park the car, so wait for me in front of the main entrance, I’ll take you to his office.” Till said as he sat behind the wheel, nodding outside.

Paul nodded too, letting him drive away. Instead of immediately going, he let his arms slip down to Richard’s waist and hugged him as hard as he could, whispering into the crook of his neck, “It’s going to be okay. It’s okay. He’s safe.”


End file.
